A Call to Vengeance
by Z98
Summary: The defeat of Sovereign brought reprieve, not victory, and an all too short one as new threats emerge. Amongst their victims is the Normandy, heroine of the hunt for Saren, and with the ship's destruction comes the loss of not just friends but also family. For Shepard, the mission is now one for vengeance, at any cost. Sequel to A Call to Duty.
1. Prologue

_Hokay, let's see, where to start. I guess why I'm doing this. The shrinks seem to think that me talking aloud about my problems will somehow help things. And here I thought talking to myself would be a sign I'm losing it even more. Anyway. Umm, so this is going to be a log, of anything that's happened to me that's left an impact, or might have left an impact. Haven't exactly had a sedate life, as a child or as an adult. This'll probably take a while._

_*deep breath*_

_Okay, so, beginnings. I was born to Victor and Hannah Shepard. Dad was an engineer, specialized in EW systems. Mom was also in the navy, tactical track. They met at the academy and married not long after graduating. I, had a brother. Twin brother actually. Older twin brother. By maybe a minute or two. He, he passed away. Officially KIA, but. Fuck. No, no I can't do this-_

_*crashing sound*_

_-Evangeline Shepard, Mandatory Counseling Log 001_

Prologue

Ira furor brevis est

_To Ms. Evangeline Shepard,_

_I heard what happened, Ms. Shepard. And as someone whom also lost a loved one, I just wanted to let you know that you are not alone. You helped bring my wife home, you gave me the chance to have some final closure. For that I will be forever grateful. And for that, I would offer any help within my means in your time of sorrow._

_I've opened a restaurant, in memory of my wife's dream. Many imperial servicemen frequent it, and I've had a chance to meet more of the men and women whom called my Nirali sister. If you ever need a place to enjoy a warm meal and welcome company, my door will always be open to you._

_With the utmost gratitude,_

_Samesh Bhatia_

* * *

_To Little Miss Shep,_

_I remember when you and John were still kids, barely up to my knees. You two were so excited to see where your mother worked, and everyone in the marine company just fell to pieces around both of you. Especially you. All of us just knew that you would grow up to be one of us. And you did. Did all of us proud. Not just by serving, but remembering the least of us, even after you seemed to rise higher and higher._

_I'm sorry about your brother. I know you loved him dearly, and even if he was the big brother it was clear as day you also felt the need to protect him. I was lucky enough to see that. I hope that that is something you yourself never forget. Please be okay, Jane. It wouldn't feel right if you weren't, after you helped pull me back from such a dark place._

_Be safe,_

_Lieutenant Ernesto Zabaleta, Imperial Terran Marine Corps, Ret._

* * *

_To Major Evangeline Shepard,_

_I'm writing this because, well, after what you did for me, it just wouldn't feel right not to try to say something. I know what it's like to lose a brother, what it's like to wonder, why wasn't it me. Why him. It hurts, a lot, and I won't try to tell you otherwise. And it should hurt. That hurt lets you know how much you loved him, and how much he loved you back._

_You saved my life on X57 and I will never forget that. You saved a lot of lives that day too, including that of my father down on Terra Nova. Dad says that Aaron is with God now, and I'm sure that's where your brother is as well. And I know that they're both looking down upon us, and would want us to keep going. To live, and not be caught in the web of regret and sorrow. Grieve for him. Cry for him. But know that even though he is gone and you are still here, you are not alone, and when the time is right, and not a moment before, you will meet again at His side._

_In sincere thanks,_

_Kate Bowman_

* * *

_To my big sis,_

_Hey Jane, it's been a while. Not since before Mom passed away, actually. And I'm sorry for not keeping in touch. I could use the excuse that I've been busy what with the expeditions into the Terminus Systems and what not, but that's really just an excuse, and a pretty crappy one at that. Truth is, I've been a bit jealous of how much attention Dad always seemed to pay to you. Sometimes it felt like you were more his kid than me or Scott. But you were always there for us, and I actually kind of enjoyed not being the big sister from time to time._

_Anyway, I'm, not very good at this sort of thing. But, I just wanted to let you know. Your little sis is there for you. So is your little bro (though Scott still has that crush on you, so if you're feeling generous you could tone down on the kid treatment). And my grumpy old man is also there for you. You still have family, Jane. Don't ever think otherwise._

_Specialist Sara Ryder, Imperial Terran Marine Corps_

* * *

_To Jane,_

_I don't know how many times I've rewritten this message, I guess I'm not very good at this sort of thing. When I heard about what happened to John, I knew you wouldn't take it well. I mean, you were always there for Sara and me, maybe even more than Dad was at times. We both looked up to you, and honestly, it's more because of you than Dad that both of us enlisted._

_Anyway, this isn't about me or Sara. It's about you, and John. He was a good man, and a good brother. I know it hurts, and I know you miss him. If you ever want to talk, or to just have someone to listen, just give me a call. The Charon relay is just a hop and skip from Earth, and I'll be there before you know it. You aren't alone, Jane. You'll always have Sara and me, and even grumpy old Dad._

_Specialist Scott Ryder, Imperial Terran Marine Corps_

_PS – Don't listen to anything Sara says about any crush, she's lying. I swear._

* * *

_Unread message queue_

_From: Samesh Bhatia_

_From: Ernesto Zabaleta_

_From: Kate Bowman_

_From: Sara Ryder_

_From: Scott Ryder_

_From: Marie Durand_

_From: Lizbeth Baynham_

…

_.._

_._

_Unread message count: 314_

End Prologue

The draft for the prologue was actually completed long before _A Call to Duty_ was finished, but I held it back to give myself a break. I'm still not actually prepared to start work on more of _Vengeance_, but I thought all of you would at least like a peek to see what sort of tone I'll be going for, and have something you could bookmark and whatnot.

The ME2 storyline was a sort of contrived reset of Shepard's progress from ME1, and a lot of the storytelling was arguably simplified in order to justify how Shepard ended up working with Cerberus. I however want to retain a much greater degree of complexity in my story, and so quite a few things will be getting tweaked. One thing right off the bat that all of you can presume is that my Shepard is still monumentally pissed. Indeed, her anger is going to distinctly tint her methods.

One thing that I did in _Duty_ that I also intend to do here is do a lot of arc welding. One of the greatest weaknesses of the ME games was the disjointed nature of a lot of the side missions, and even quite a few of the main storyline missions didn't quite feel as tightly woven into the wider background. That was probably a natural consequence of Bioware needing to make sure they don't put in anything that contradicted the user's choices, but it also meant that in a lot of ways user choice could not have much of a meaningful impact in the grand scheme of things. My narrative on the other hand does not have this constraint upon it, so I can more deeply interleave missions and the like throughout, and hopefully build up a more complex interplay between Shepard's actions and the fallout in the wider galaxy. Once I get back to this story at least.

It was actually kind of amusing after _Duty_ ended, I suddenly got this surge of people following me as an author instead of just the story itself. I presume it's because most of you were doing so to get notified when this went up.


	2. Chapter 1

_Okay, since I've been threatened with not being allowed to go back on duty until after I go through all aspects of the mandatory counseling, here we are again. This is a log that I'm doing because the shrinks say talking to myself will somehow be therapeutic. At this point the only courtesy I'm prepared to extend them is to not put on open record what I think about them. So. Evangeline Mackenzie Shepard, born to Victor and Hannah Shepard. Brother, KIA, Jonathan Albert Shepard. There, y'all happy?_

_*long pause*_

_Anyway. Growing up, I followed Mom and Dad wherever they got posted, they were lucky that the navy was usually able to keep them together on deployments. Or at least assign them to the same station, fraternization rules meant they couldn't actually be part of the same command. Dad usually got posted to the fleet station, while Mom to a ship that was part of the local fleet command. So way things ended up, John and I actually saw more of Dad than Mom while growing up. Maybe that's why Dad seemed to understand us better. Maybe, if Mom had been around more, she might not have nearly killed me._

_-Evangeline Shepard, Mandatory Counseling Log 002_

Chapter 1

Absit omen

"I understand this is a difficult time for you, Major," Dr. Samantha Frasier began, herself a lieutenant-commander in the Imperial Terran Navy and thus of equivalent rank to one Major Evangeline Shepard, "but I trust you also understand the reservations associated with your case."

Major Evangeline Shepard, Cadre of His Majesty's Own Household Cavalry and former commanding officer of HMS _Normandy_, regarded the doctor green eyes clear and head tilted.

"The corps doesn't think I'm psychologically fit to return to duty," the major stated bluntly. "You're here to see if I'm an exception to the established models that they're using."

Samantha gave Shepard a tolerant look. "And do you really think your attitude is helping with that, Jane?"

The familiarity was not unwarranted, Lieutenant-Commander Samantha Frasier was part of the staff permanently stationed at Geneva that helped oversee the medical needs of the local garrison, including Cadre personnel. While Samantha had been rotated out every couple of years as part of the usual field deployments the military did to give its personnel breadth in their experiences, those instances where she was back in Geneva had often overlapped with Shepard's own tours in the imperial capital. The two women were not necessarily friends, they did not interact socially enough for that, but they were at least trusted colleagues. Any closer and Samantha might have had to recuse herself to allow another doctor to conduct this interview. As it was, Samantha was finding it already hard enough to maintain an impartial view even without Shepard's stubbornness rearing its head.

"Would me trying to lie my ass off to you help either?" Shepard countered.

"No, I suppose not," Samantha conceded, her lips thinning in slight worry before continuing. "As I was saying, I am here to perform a follow-up interview in light of the results of your psychological fitness evaluation. And you are indeed correct, multiple concerns were raised as to your fitness to return to active duty, a key one being your rationale for wanting to return to duty."

"So I have a chance to kill the bastards that killed John," Shepard said, again with almost casual bluntness.

John, her brother, perhaps the one person in her family that was left that had held true to her throughout the years after their father died. Not even Shepard's own mother could lay claim to that quality, no matter how much Hannah Shepard might regret it.

"Oh Jane," Samantha sighed. "Are you trying to get permanently beached?"

"Nothing of the sort," Shepard responded. "As I previously said, I see no reason why I should lie."

Even so, the truth might not be of much help here either.

"The navy is not there as a means for you to pursue a personal vendetta," Samantha said reproachfully. "Furthermore, you are one of His Majesty's sworn armswomen. Do you really think it is becoming of you to use the uniform like that?"

Shepard's eyes flickered slightly before she answered. "Since my graduation from the academy, I have completed two tours of duty and therefore have also completed all of my requisite service as stipulated by my commissioning. Were I to submit my resignation here and now, there would be no procedural grounds to deny it, after which point any actions I undertake thereon would not be under naval jurisdiction."

Samantha's own eyes widened as she caught onto Shepard's implications.

"My request to be returned to active duty therefore is an offer to the navy, and indeed to His Majesty, to determine some way in which my, vendetta as you call it, might be gainfully employed by the Empire to achieve some useful end," the major continued. "If the navy, and His Majesty, come to the determination that that is not possible, then let it be known and I will have a letter of resignation on the appropriate desk this afternoon."

"Jane," Samantha said, softly but purposefully. "Are you attempting to blackmail the navy."

"I am attempting to offer the _Empire_ the greatest possible chance to not have to disavow the actions of someone that was awarded the Star of Terra," Shepard answered, her eyes sharpening. "If you want to call it blackmail, then so be it, but know that I did make the offer."

* * *

Charles XII, Emperor of the Terran Empire, pursed his lips as he regarded the playback. He then turned his chair about to face a man adorned with the stripes of a marine colonel.

"I take it Commander Frasier has already submitted her evaluation?"

"Yes, Your Majesty," one Alec Ryder answered, without bothering to expand upon what that evaluation might say. Its contents were probably obvious enough.

As one of three currently active colonels within the Imperial Cadre, Alec was on very close terms with his sworn liege. He was also something of a surrogate father to one Evangeline Shepard, having helped Shepard through an especially difficult time when the latter's parents divorced and through an even rougher time when Shepard's biological father died. The intimacy of that relation meant Alec was probably somewhat biased when it came to Shepard, but right now that was the very sort of insight that Charles wanted. For Shepard, as Cadre, was also one of Charles' sworn vassals. That meant for all the duty Shepard was expected to uphold towards the emperor, Charles had an equally binding set of responsibilities to see after the major.

"So what does Alexey say?"

Whereas Alec was merely a colonel in the Cadre, Lieutenant-General Alexander Kosygin was the formal commanding officer of the Cadre itself, with only Charles himself officially outranking the man. Due to the peculiar nature of the Cadre's status vis a vis the rest of the armed forces, that meant the emperor was actually the only person capable of issuing a binding order to the general. Technically not even the war staff that normally oversaw the armed forces could do that.

"General Kosygin is tempted to assign Shepard to latrine duty for the next decade for her, discourtesy," Alec answered, then after a slight pause, "after she gets back from completing her mission."

There was no need to stipulate what mission Alexey meant. While certainly not as close to Shepard as Alec, Alexey was still quite familiar with the major. He had after all signed off on her recruitment to the Cadre after the Torfan operation. And whatever his responsibilities as the Cadre's day to day commander, Alexey was still a passionate and deeply loyal man. He might not have been able to officially endorse Shepard's desire for revenge, but discretely blessing it would be very much in character. Indeed the same could likely to be said for a significant percentage of the Cadre, officer and enlisted alike. All of them knew about what happened to Shepard's brother, and few would begrudge the major's desire to be answered for the loss.

And there lay the exact same quandary for Charles. As Shepard's sovereign liege, he was obliged to answer any injury inflicted upon his vassal. Granted the particular oaths that stipulated as such were older than quite a few of the current imperial laws and might well conflict with several. Then there was the point about whether letting Shepard loose like that actually was to the ultimate benefit of the major, or to the Empire at large. It was a balance of interests that Charles had to weigh, and sometimes the one that won out was not that which was most satisfying emotionally.

"And your own opinion, Colonel?" Charles asked next.

Alec took a deep breath. "Shepard isn't going to stop, Your Majesty, not until whomever killed John is also put down or at least neutralized as a threat. If we want to have any hope of restraining her, to make sure she doesn't cross too many lines in pursuit of that goal, we need to tether her with something that'll constantly remind her of her sense of duty."

"By putting her back on active duty, probably on an independent assignment to investigate and find the perpetrators of the _Normandy_ ambush," Charles said.

"Yes, Your Majesty."

The emperor stroked his chin thoughtfully. "You do know that all of the psychiatric evaluations and models indicate Shepard is not psychologically fit to return to duty at present."

Namely, that Shepard's judgment could not be trusted to not endanger those under her command with irrational actions.

Alec dipped his head slightly. "And what does Hera say, Your Majesty?"

Charles actually gave a slight grimace there. Hera was the primary AI stationed in Geneva, acting as a synchronization partner for not just Cadre personnel while they were assigned to the city but many other synchronizers as well, including new synchronizers undergoing stage one integration. Indeed that was actually how Shepard first met Hera, when as a child her potential was discovered and she underwent integration at a much younger age than normal. As a consequence, and due to the schism that erupted between Shepard and her own mother at the time, Hera had become like another surrogate mother for the girl. The affection was reciprocated by the AI, even after so many years. Even so, or perhaps because of that affection, Hera could be trusted to provide a completely honest assessment of Shepard's current mentality.

"According to Hera," Charles said slowly and carefully, "the major's neural topology has been at a near constant plateau since she learned about her brother's death."

That saw Alec raise an eyebrow. A person's emotional state could be very quickly discerned by the fluctuations in their neural topology, especially by AIs synchronized with them. Most people also had a sort of baseline pattern, wherein they weren't necessarily angry or happy or sad, when things were in a chaotic equilibrium just waiting to be tipped into one emotion or the other. A plateau on the other hand implied a continual emotional bias, perpetually remaining in a particular emotional state. Physiologically that was extremely unhealthy for a human to the point of being borderline impossible. Augmented synchronizers like Shepard or Alec himself could theoretically do it since their implants were capable of compensating for the biorhythmic imbalance caused by the brain lingering in such a plateau. It was just something extremely unusual to the point that Alec could not recall ever hearing of a previous instance.

"Your Majesty," Alec said after a moment. "In complete frankness, it is my belief that if we put Shepard back on active duty, her sense of responsibility and loyalty will ensure that she carries out those duties without being compromised by her emotional state. Honesty however also compels me to admit that, if and when Shepard is presented with an opportunity to take out whomever killed her brother, she is liable to let that control slip and allow it to impact her judgment."

"Which is the dilemma that I am faced with, Colonel," Charles said with a wry smile. "Because even so aware of that point, I know with certainty that anyone assigned to the major would still have complete faith in that judgment."

In other words, if Charles gave Shepard a command, he could very well be consigning the men and women of that command to their deaths if Shepard lost control. And were that to happen, the major's psychological state may well reach a genuine breaking point. Even if she greatly desired the deaths of her brother's killers, Shepard was not one to throw away the lives of her subordinates. Even more frightening however was the possibility that she could become that callous in pursuit of her vengeance.

"Your Majesty," Alec spoke up again. "You are aware that during the Saren investigation, Major Shepard established connections with countless parties in both Council and non-Council space."

Charles cocked his head aside. "I am so aware." And invited Alec to further elucidate.

"Amongst those contacts is the turian executor of C-SEC," Alec continued, "the salarian representative of the Council, a salarian Spectre, a C-SEC captain that is currently a Spectre candidate, a salarian STG captain, a turian Blackwatch lieutenant, a krogan battlemaster, and the daughter of one of the quarian Migrant Fleet's admirals. How many of those people do you think would be willing to lend her a hand if she were to independently pursue an investigation on the _Normandy's_ attackers?"

To that the emperor's eyes narrowed. It was a possibility that he himself should have considered, seeing as how so many of the Empire's recent diplomatic advancements were due to the bridges Shepard had built.

"At the same time, those same persons can be presumed to still be willing to lend a hand if Shepard's investigation was under imperial sanction," Alec said.

That too was certainly a noteworthy point of consideration. Indeed it certainly tilted the scales regarding Shepard's final disposition. Still.

"That the major is capable of rallying many to her banner is a given," Charles thought aloud. "Whether we could afford to let her use, and potentially even discard, those that do so…"

Alec grimaced. "That I have no answer for, Your Majesty."

Despite having ostensibly raised the question himself, Charles' eyes focused as the pieces clicked into place.

"And yet there may be a pool of personnel whom fit within that criteria," the emperor said.

Alec shot the emperor a quizzical look, which quickly morphed into one of discomfort as the colonel followed Charles' train of thought. The expression Alec now wore was certainly not one of approval, but neither did he give voice to any protest. Perhaps he should have, but Alec held his peace, and prayed fervently that he would not regret his silence.

* * *

The woman that stared back in the mirror could be considered beautiful, in a tomboyish sort of way. The green of her eyes certainly shone like emeralds, though perhaps the stone might lose out on hardness. Then there was her bright red hair, which shone with fiery spirit. The beauty that one Evangeline Mackenzie Shepard embodied was however that of a fierce Valkyrie, a maiden of war. And the thorns that covered this particular rose could be very sharp indeed, for whomever dared become close with her.

A knock sounded on the wooden door, stirring Shepard from her melancholic posture. Straightening, Shepard took a deep breath to recompose herself.

"Entrez."

The door opened to reveal one of the palace's servants.

"Commandant, Colonel Ryder est arrivé."

"Merci, je serai là."

The servant dipped her head and retreated. Shepard took another deep breath. She had been a guest of the imperial palace in Geneva for going on two months now, with only very light duties assigned to her on account of her continuing rehabilitation. While the major was not outright going stir crazy, her restlessness was becoming increasingly testing. She wanted to be out there, to be hunting the bastards that had killed her brother. To kill them in turn, if the opportunity was granted, or at the very least to neutralize the threat that these assailants obviously represented. But she remained beached for the time being with no idea when, or even if, she would be given a new command. The waiting gnawed at her. Straightening, Shepard smoothed out her working uniform and cleared her expression of any sign of such disgruntlement. Alec did not deserve having to put up with her whining.

A minute or so later, when Shepard entered the waiting room, she came to an abrupt halt upon seeing the figures seated inside. Yes, Alec Ryder was indeed rising to greet her, but so was His Majesty the Emperor Charles. Recovering quickly, Shepard came to attention and bowed.

"Your Majesty. Colonel."

Charles offered a slight, kindly smile. "Major. If you would be so kind as to join us."

"By your leave, Your Majesty," Shepard answered as she took one of the empty seats.

"You are aware, Major, of the complications of your situation," Charles said without preamble. "Just as we are aware of your desire to be out there now, to exact vengeance for your brother's death."

Shepard said nothing. There was nothing for her to say, yet. Certainly nothing to deny, as everything the emperor had said was true, including that bit about vengeance, however unbecoming it might be for an officer of her standing.

"We would not begrudge you such a path," Charles said, the emphasis on the first word marking the position as that of not just the man himself but also the sovereign Shepard was sworn to. "Nonetheless, it would be negligent of Us if We were to allow you to venture forth on this endeavor without adequate assurances of your success."

Shepard's eyes narrowed. In frankness the emperor's words should not have surprised her, Charles was well practiced in balancing not only the needs of state but also more personal needs. The emperor was also very skilled in making those two needs complement each other, as he demonstrated now.

"Salvage operations in the Amada System were completed recently and we were able to recover the _Normandy's_ wreckage," Alec began speaking. "Reconstructed sensor records have also allowed us to tentatively identify the hostiles that attacked the ship."

Working the console on the center table, Alec brought up a hazy projection of a bulbous, rocky construct. The thing looked more like some asteroid mine than a proper ship.

"The vessel in question is unlike anything we've seen before," Alec continued. "Its size pushes it into dreadnaught class, though its full weapons complement remains as yet an unknown. The weaponry that it did display included a massive particle beam."

The major listened attentively, analyzing the minute details that were being presented. A particle beam like that would ignore kinetic barriers outright, and frigates like the _Normandy_ did not possess the heavy armoring necessary to survive sustained hits. Engaging such a ship would best be done at range, preferably with something that mounted heavier firepower than a frigate, or probably even a cruiser. The emperor was probably not thinking of handing Shepard a dreadnaught though, or the attendant fleet that usually accompanied one.

"The ship matches nothing in our own databases," Alec said, "though the energy signature that the _Normandy_ first picked up matched an unknown contact that the Empire detected shortly after first contact, but which was never properly identified. In light of our near complete ignorance on the matter, th Citadel Council was approached and the salarian representative, Valern, was able to make a few calls with their STG, whom were able to shed some more light upon what this ship is."

A subtle reminder, that, of Shepard's own accomplishments in ingratiating humanity with certain elements of the Council races.

"According to the STG, the ship that attacked the _Normandy_ was a Collector cruiser," Alec said.

Shepard stared somewhat blankly at the colonel, the name Collector not ringing any bells.

"The Collectors are something of an interstellar boogieman," Alec explained. "According to rumors, they pop up in the Terminus Systems from time to time, offering to trade advanced biotech in exchange for living persons of certain qualities. Batarian twins, left-handed salarians, individuals of that nature, if the rumors are to be believed."

For all Shepard's vivid imagination the major could not begin to fathom why the Collectors would be interested in such sampling. Perhaps some sort of genetics analysis? But then why the emphasis on live samples? She doubted the rationale meant anything pleasant for those traded.

"As you can see, Major," Charles spoke anew. "Hunting these Collectors comes with a variety of complications. Indeed to do so successfully likely requires resources beyond that of which the Empire officially possesses."

Whether publicly acknowledged or not, that meant the Empire did indeed have the means to go after the Collectors. Doing so too openly however might draw unwanted attention, or at least the wrong sort of attention. All of the galactic polities understood the necessity of plausible deniability and most were not overly interested in breaking the kneecaps of other states, so long as they could keep their skeletons properly hidden in the closet. It was only when those skeletons tumbled out because the nation in question was too blatant, like the batarians with their slavery, that other polities found themselves forced to act. Of course the threshold at which such lines were crossed differed for the various governments, hence why threadbare tolerance on the part of the asari, salarians, and turians was replaced with steadfast opposition by the terrans in that particular case.

What the emperor was thus insinuating was that whatever means the Empire might employ in hunting for the Collectors would require certain acts that the other races still found within their bounds of tolerance, if the Empire was careful in said employment. But there was always the risk that the Empire's caution was insufficient, that something sufficiently embarrassing might leak. And that when it did, someone would need to take the fall to protect the rest of the Empire. Someone like Shepard.

"Whatever means are necessary, Your Majesty," Shepard stated firmly, "I am prepared to shoulder."

Neither of the two men looked especially happy with Shepard volunteering so readily, for a variety of reasons. But the decision was not theirs to make, not wholly. They could have certainly stood in Shepard's way, but on this singular matter doing so might well bend their relation to her to the breaking point. Above the oaths that bound her, above the surrogate family that nurtured her, Shepard held close within her heart her own blood. It was why her mother's betrayal had cut so deeply, and now why she was steadfastly determined to avenge the death of her brother. Charles and Alec could either help in that endeavor, or never be forgiven for impeding it.

Charles rose, and immediately thereafter so did Shepard and Alec.

"Come with me, Major."

Shepard made to follow, noting how Alec had remained behind. By excluding the colonel, the emperor was in part also protecting him from what came next. That by itself spoke volumes of how sensitive the next few moments would be. Following in her liege's footsteps, Shepard descended down into the palace's lower levels, deeper indeed than she had ever personally gone before. This section had obviously been updated so there were no signs of old, stony foundations. Instead they crossed well-lit corridors before emerging in a sparsely appointed but entirely functional office.

By the side of that office was a large holographic projector, one that allowed for life-size imagery of people to be shown. Working the controls himself, Charles brought the projector to life and they were greeted by a neatly dressed man, one whose cropped hair shifted between silver and gray hues. It was his eyes however that drew the most attention, a pair of blue orbs that were obviously augmented.

"Your Majesty," the man greeted respectively, then. "Major Shepard."

"Major Shepard, meet the Illusive Man," Charles introduced.

Shepard's expression stiffened for a single moment. The major recognized the name, the title really, not merely because she was Cadre. Even within that organization's ranks, those granted the privilege, or rather tasked with shouldering the responsibility, that came with awareness of the Illusive Man and his connections to the imperial family were limited to a select few. Shepard was amongst those few due to the many instances in which she had to clean up after the organization's screw ups, a point which rather strongly colored her own perception of the organization and its leader.

"Cerberus' puppet master."

"I prefer to think of myself as a guiding hand," the Illusive Man responded.

"A firm one, that squeezes when your puppets stray," Shepard said, "or one whose grip is all too easily slipped?"

"Major," Charles reined her in, then to the man in the projection. "We have more important matters to attend to here, Jack."

Shepard's eyebrow quirked upward ever so slightly at that bit. Much of the Illusive Man's effectiveness came from the mystery surrounding him, the lack of a known history that made predicting anything about him difficult. Put a face, but perhaps more importantly a name, to the man, and that aura of mysteriousness was diminished. A reminder for the Illusive Man, or Jack, that however powerful he might think himself to be, there were still those that could rein him in.

"Of course, Your Majesty," the Illusive Man said without showing any hint of being perturbed. "Major, I am sure it is no surprise to you that Cerberus has taken an interest in the _Normandy's_ encounter with a Collector cruiser. Setting aside the encounter itself, we believe it fits in a wider pattern of attacks on human outposts and ships that has been happening in and around the Terminus Systems since the Battle of the Citadel."

Shepard tilted her head. "What sets these attacks apart from the usual pirate and slaver raids?"

"Pirates and slavers tend to leave smoldering ruins in their wake," the Illusive Man answered. "Whomever is behind these attacks, they've left no traces whatsoever."

Shepard felt a slight flicker of irritation. "And you consider the attack on the _Normandy_ to be traceless?"

"That it was the exception is indicative of just how advanced these Collectors are," the Illusive Man responded, "and that traces were left are indicative of the prowess of the _Normandy's_ crew."

That might have sounded like empty flattery, but it was also a peace offering of sorts, the Illusive Man's attempt to get Shepard to stop being so snippy with him. In frankness it was rather childish of her, and the major dipped her head ever so slightly to indicate her provisional acceptance.

"Another thing of note is the manner in which the _Normandy_ was hit," the Illusive man continued. "Namely, the ship had its stealth systems engaged when it came under attack. Only one other entity has possessed the means to penetrate that system."

As the _Normandy's_ former commanding officer, Shepard was acutely aware of what that other entity was. The pieces clicked into place and a glint flashed in her eye.

"Sovereign."

The Illusive Man nodded. "You see why the Collectors are drawing such acute interest, Major."

The connection between these Collectors and the Reapers that the Illusive Man was postulating was still somewhat threadbare, that it was possible to penetrate the _Normandy's_ stealth to begin with meant it was just a matter of statistical probability when the means would be developed by any of the various races that populated the galaxy. There was no reason that someone else completely unrelated to the Reapers might stumble upon those means completely independently. Then again, the consequences if the connection did exist were potentially cataclysmic.

"So what's the plan, then?" Shepard asked.

"The plan, Major, is to identify what the Collectors' objectives are and to as permanently neutralize the threat that they represent as is practicable," the Illusive Man answered. "Unfortunately, as is already evident, we're on the other side of a technological deficit going up against them, even with Cerberus pulling out all the stops. But there's a chance, granted a slim one, that the right team, under the right leader, could pull it off."

And there it was, the means by which she might exact her vengeance, if she was willing to make the necessary compromise. Shepard glanced over at Charles but the emperor remained stoically impassive. It would have to be her decision, and hers alone. The major looked back at the Illusive Man.

"It would be _my_ team," she emphasized, "and we'd be doing things _my_ way."

"But of course," the Illusive Man conceded with surprising readiness. "It would rather defeat the point to recruit you for your skills and then to immediately hobble you."

Shepard raised an eyebrow. An interesting word to use there, recruit. So many ways it could be interpreted. Was the offer of help merely a wedge, by which to tempt her with all that Cerberus could offer. Look here, what you might accomplish if unrestrained by mere law. How much easier things would be if you were unbounded by petty ethics. In accepting their help, Shepard would need to be ever vigilant against such enticements. As tempting as the apple may be, there was no telling which one in the barrel was rotten, or even poisoned.

"So is the team actually assembled, or do I need to do some recruiting?" Shepard asked.

"We are still identifying candidates," the Illusive Man answered, "but before you are ready to lead them, Major, there is one matter that needs settling."

Shepard cocked her head aside. "Oh?"

"We know for a fact that the Reapers are possessed of extremely advanced technology," the Illusive Man said. "We also know they are not shy about augmenting their own agents, to levels that well eclipse even the Empire's Cadre. While you may have defeated Saren, it cannot be denied that the victories were narrow ones."

The major was honest enough with herself to recognize the truth in the man's words, and not to quibble over them due to misplaced pride.

"At the same time, while the Cadre are outfitted with some of the very finest augmentations that humanity has developed, those augments do not represent the very bleeding edge of what is possible."

The major raised her eyebrow at the word choice again. Knowing Cerberus, there likely had been quite the cost in blood to develop whatever it was the Illusive Man was hinting at. Another projection appeared, that of the human body along with highlights of all sorts of implants throughout said body. With her neural connection, Shepard was able to note the technical specifications of the proposed modifications.

"Subdermal armoring, titanium-carbide reinforcement of the bones, a carbon nanotube sheath synthetic muscle augment," Shepard rattled off some of the physical enhancements. "Hmm, an improved nervous relay network as well."

Numbers flitted past her eyes of the force levels the enhancements were theoretically capable of exerting, along with improvements to synaptic response times and other various bonuses.

"The techs are currently calling it an N7+ suite," the Illusive Man narrated. "Significant improvements have been made to the biotic amplifiers, allowing for almost twice the peak power projection as the current N7 series, and without the feedback problems. The other major improvement is in the reaction time. Baseline humans top out at about 200 milliseconds, or 120 milliseconds for purely visual stimulus responses. N7 augments decrease that time to 160 milliseconds and 100 milliseconds respectively. These augments, with proper AI partner support, take it down to 140 and 90 milliseconds."

Arguably they might be reaching the point of diminishing returns with such improvements, but the reaction times the Illusive Man listed played an additional role in how quickly the human mind could interact with stimulus from an AI partner. The closer a human mind could match the frequency of their AI partner, the deeper the synchronization they could achieve. Some researchers theorized that when an AI and human mind achieved perfect synchronicity, what would emerge would be a transhuman singularity. While progress towards greater synchronization made leaps and bounds in the early years of AI development, the percentages had plateaued at approximately 79% since a generation or so ago. Attempts to break past the 80% threshold seemed to run into ever more insurmountable obstacles, ranging from biological limits of the human brain to physical limits of computational hardware.

None of the improvements the Illusive Man listed would see humanity any closer to crossing the threshold, Shepard doubted Cerberus even with its lack of ethical restraints had found a way to circumvent basic biology and physics. Probably the one good quality about the organization was that it was not deterred by failure however, though in retrospect that might count as a bad thing as well.

"None of this seems that out there," Shepard said as she absorbed the technical data. "Why isn't it actively deployed already?"

"Testing of the augments revealed an interesting problem," the Illusive Man answered. "While human physiology was capable of adapting to the enhancements, it appears that the current hardware architecture our AIs use has reached a saturation point. To synchronize and actually take advantage of the new augments required a new generation of AI hardware, one that utilizes quantum blue boxes."

That caused Shepard to blink. Terran AIs had been developed to run on highly interconnected compute platforms that effectively simulated the neural topology of organic brains. The complexity that these networks could grow to were thus heavily dependent upon the amount of hardware made available, but there was a finite upper limit as dictated by transmission bandwidth and the depth of the computational pipeline. Even with these limits, humanity had produced AIs capable of expressing recognizable emotions alongside more rote abilities like pattern recognition.

After humanity came in contact with the galactic community, it had been exposed to the quantum computing systems that underpinned what the galaxy considered conventional AI. Humanity had also possessed quantum computers before first contact, but terran versions were noticeably less sophisticated in various ways. Efforts to port terran AIs to quantum blue boxes began almost immediately after the Empire acquired sample hardware, but it was only now that progress had reached a point where such AIs were being brought online. Case in point, the juvenile SAM AI that Shepard had encountered while visiting Ellen Ryder.

"Interesting," was the only verbalization of all the thoughts that flashed through Shepard's head however.

"You would arguably be the first person to employ this equipment in the field," the Illusive Man said. "Still, considering what we may be up against, you'll probably need every edge you can get."

Another backhanded attempt at beguiling Shepard with promised gifts. The Illusive Man was not being entirely transparent with his desire to recruit Shepard for Cerberus proper, but the man was obviously prepared to test the limits of how far Shepard herself would allow herself to be pushed. In some ways so was the emperor, seeing as Charles had remained silent throughout all these prompts. As for the major herself, as much as she wanted the bastards that killed her brother, she also recognized there was a line that could be crossed in pursuit of that goal. Was she prepared to do so if it meant bringing John's killers to heel? Maybe. That maybe was already dangerous in and of itself. Shepard checked herself before responding.

"So long as the tools you provide continue to have a use, I will use them," the major said. "It falls upon you however to demonstrate that they are actually adequate for the task at hand."

Yes, Shepard would accept the help. But that acceptance was on the major's sufferance, and she would not brook any attempts to conditionalize that aid. Ever so slightly, the edge of Charles' lips twitched as if the emperor was trying to suppress a smile. The Illusive Man remained visibly unperturbed however, he likely did not think it would be that easy to seduce Shepard, and simply nodded.

"That goes without saying."

He was obviously patient enough to not let Shepard's rebuff bother him, not yet at least. Time would tell how long that patience would last.

"Is there anything else that needs to be discussed here?" Shepard asked, leaving it vague as to whom she was addressing so either could answer.

"That will be all for today, Major," Charles finally spoke. "Return to your previous duties."

Shepard clicked her heels together. "By your leave, Your Majesty."

And spun around, without sparing the Illusive Man another glance. Once the door closed behind Shepard, Charles glanced back over at the holographic projection. The Illusive Man returned the gaze unflinchingly.

"Take care with how you handle the major," Charles said evenly. "Shepard is one of mine, and I will brook no missteps regarding her. Is that understood, Jack?"

The Illusive Man took a long huff of his cigarette before answering. "It is, Charles."

* * *

Shepard had slept soundly the night before. It was perhaps the first time in months that her sleep actually felt restful. Perhaps it was from relief that her long wait was over, that a decision had finally been made regarding her disposition. Or perhaps she had come to simply accept the perpetual darkening mood that clouded her mind, to treat it as the new normal instead of something through which light might one day shine again. Whatever the case was, Shepard rose from her bed awake and steady.

As she began changing into her uniform, her HUD overplay displayed a notification of a newly arrived message. The major almost dismissed it reflexively, she had had far too many messages flooding her inbox as of late, messages that she was not in any particular mood to deal with. Before she could do so however, in the corner of her eye a name caught her attention. Tazana Kryik. The major's motions came to an abrupt halt.

Kryik. That was a name Shepard had not thought of for a very long time. It felt like a lifetime ago, when another Kryik accompanied Shepard on a highly fraught mission to retrieve a prothean beacon from a research base besieged by geth, and something far worse. It was a mission that nearly saw Shepard die, and did see Nihlus fall, at the hands of someone the turian Spectre had thought was a friend and mentor. It was also there, on Eden Prime, where the mission to stop the Reapers began. A mission that even now continued.

Shepard's eyes lingered upon that notification as the seconds passed by. After Nihlus' death, she had penned a letter to his remaining family, as was her duty seeing as their son had died bearing arms at her side. It had been an extraordinarily difficult letter to write, if only because Shepard had no idea what a grieving turian family might want to hear upon notification of their son's death. She certainly did not know if they would even want to read a human's words on the matter. Still, the major had done her best to be honest and clear to Nihlus' family, both about the circumstances of his death, as much as was possible at the time considering classification levels, and about her own regard for the Spectre.

No response had come, not that Shepard had expected any. No response till now at least. The major felt unnaturally wary about its timing though, as if she dreaded what topic it might broach. Whether this was yet another message of platitudes that she was not in the mood to read. Completely earnest and meaningful platitudes, certainly, but platitudes none the less. Staring at the notification for a few moments longer, Shepard finally dismissed it, and went back to preparing for her day.

End of Chapter 1

I might be laying it on a bit thick here, but there is something to be said for Shepard's current mentality. She's, not exactly suffering from PTSD. In most ways, Shepard is accepting of everything that has happened. She certainly mourns those that have fallen and she certainly wishes she could have done better (and she is still to a degree pissed with her mother), but she isn't caught in any sort of negative feedback loop as a consequence. In some ways Shepard's reaction to her brother's death is an entirely reflexive, almost instinctual response on her part. Someone has caused harm to someone she really, really cared about, and she's going to end them, and she's pursuing this objective with a very single-minded determination.

There is something of a presumption that people reading this story have read the previous entry in the trilogy, _A Call to Duty_. Even so, I do need to take the effort from time to time to refresh people's memories about the divergences in worldbuilding between my story and the canon ME.

The Illusive Man is handling Shepard very carefully, because he knows that if he pushes her too hard, Shepard might go out of her way to kill him without even waiting for the emperor's say so. Similarly the Illusive Man is showing a degree of deference to Charles, because again the emperor is one of the few people that might be able to successfully order his death. Not that such an order would not have repercussions, if the Illusive Man decided to try to eliminate Charles, that attempt could also credibly succeed. So in a lot of ways Cerberus and the imperial authorities are sort of in an uneasy mutually assured destruction standoff, with the added wrinkle that they both think they want the same thing, humanity's continued advancement. So there exists opportunities for collaboration, but both sides are very careful to not let the other subsume them or gain too much of an advantage over the other.

As many of you already likely know, I have a habit of commissioning drawings to associate with my stories, and indeed the icon used for this story is a small snippet of the larger image I had done. Those of you that have not seen the image yet, you can reconstruct the following link to check it out.

deviantart dot com slash z98 slash art slash Lieutenant-Colonel-Evangeline-Shepard-808976973

As one can see, the augmentation process was not without some scarring. Some of that subdermal armor and cybernetics is peeking through the not entirely healed skin.


	3. Chapter 2

_So did I end on a suitably dramatic point last time? Yes I'm taking the piss out of these recordings. It's actually rather cathartic to do so, which is supposed to be the entire point, so technically none of you psychiatrists get to complain. After all, what's important is the patient's health and state of mind, not what you lot consider to be a healthy state of mind. If you didn't want this to turn into a rant about all your metrics and models, maybe you should have thought a bit more about mandating these recordings that you then have to review._

_*pause*_

_Suppose I should keep going just so you don't have an excuse to not count this one as part of the mandated number of entries. So, my mother nearly killed me. Not her intention, but to the person on the receiving end, whether something is premeditated or not is kind of moot since, you know, we'd be too dead to care. Except I happened to survive, so I did care. A lot. Especially when she started blaming everyone but herself for nearly killing me. Gave her a piece of mind at that point, told her I'd never let her anywhere near me again, that I'd make damn sure I was protected, from her. That finally got through to her, about how wrong she was. And by being so wrong just this one time, I would always have a reason to never take her for her word. So, yeah. I grew up always second guessing my own mother. Trust me, it sucked._

_-Evangeline Shepard, Mandatory Counseling Log 003, restored upon appeal over original rejection of entry_

Chapter 2

Cum grano salis

Arcturus was widely considered the heart of the Imperial Terran Navy, serving as its headquarters and home to the largest shipyards in terran space. The industrial complex around the Jovian moon of Ganymede however was the navy's main research and development complex, housing arguably the most advanced tooling and boasting a shipyard as productive if not more so than any at Arcturus. It was here that HMS _Normandy_ had been built, and here that the remains of the ship were being analyzed to better understand the foe that had bested her.

For Shepard, setting foot in the enclosed drydock where the _Normandy's_ remains were located simply fanned the smoldering fury she felt. For with the destruction of the ship came not just the death of her brother, but so many other friends and colleagues, people whom were _her_ crew. People whose deaths would not go unanswered.

"Major Shepard," a neatly dressed man greeted.

Shepard looked over and gave a nod. "Mr. Bosker. I must admit some surprising to hearing you were overseeing the _Normandy_ investigation."

Clark Bosker, a civilian analyst attached to the Office of Naval Intelligence and whom Shepard had had an encounter in the past over the return of a certain deceased marine's body to her family, gave a wry smile.

"When the analysis was originally organized, the suspicion was that the _Normandy_ had been ambushed by geth forces, hence my assignment."

"I see," Shepard said, cocking her head aside. "And have those suspicions held?"

The smile disappeared as Clark shook his head. "No, Major, they have not. Whatever attacked the _Normandy_ was no geth." The man took a deep breath. "And maybe with your help, we'll be able to figure out exactly who, or what, they are."

Technically the Empire already knew the who, but what exactly the Collectors were remained something of a galactic mystery. There were plenty of rumors, but which ones held any basis in fact was difficult to discern.

"That is why I'm here," Shepard said simply.

"Yes, of course," Clark cleared his throat. "Then, this way please, Major."

Shepard followed the man and as they walked they passed several stations upon which lay fragments of her ship. Some pieces Shepard even recognized, from power conduits to wrecked consoles. The engineers working away spared a glance or two as Shepard passed but otherwise remained focus on the task before them. Further in, the skeletal pieces of the _Normandy's_ hull were suspended in the air with mass effect fields. Holographic overlays helped fill in for destroyed sections along with showing how each piece had broken up. Stress fractures, sheer lines, even the gaping hole marking where the energy beam had sliced through the armor plating came together to show in minute detail just how her ship had died. If there was any useful information, any advantage that might be wrung out of understanding the _Normandy's_ final moments, the Empire would find it, and turn it back against the ship's killers.

"We've managed to recover a great deal of telemetry from the salvaged databanks, and we have enough sensor telemetry to more or less reconstruct the _Normandy's_ final encounter. There is however a sensory fragment from Artemis' core that we haven't been able to decode, and we believe it to be due to how, well, synchronized you were with her."

Shepard nodded. When she was first assigned to the _Normandy_, the expectation had been she would be part of the ship's complement for quite some time and combined with her Cadre status she and Artemis were given permission to remove the usual buffers that prevented an AI from molding its neural network too closely to that of their human partner's neural topology. While being so closely synchronized meant Shepard and Artemis' relative efficiencies were significantly boosted, it also meant if Shepard was reassigned anyone replacing her would have to go through quite a bit of time retraining Artemis' neural network to get back to even baseline performance.

While the navy had hoped that John's status as Shepard's twin brother might help speed that process along, a close genetic tie did not necessarily mean much. Indeed more recent research indicated that a close upbringing had an equal if not greater influence on how similar people's neural topologies were, and after the divorce Shepard had spent a crucial few years raised separately from her brother. Even more importantly, those years had seen Shepard undergo first stage integration as a synchronizer, while her brother had only completed that shortly before his own assignment to the _Normandy_. The end result was that Artemis' neural network was still heavily slanted towards Shepard, up to the AI's death along with the _Normandy's_ destruction. Hence the major getting called in for the effort to reconstruct the last few fragments from the AI's memory banks.

"Here we are, Major," Clark sad as they stopped before a workstation.

Shepard laid down on the reclining chair and activated the neural interface mounted at the head. She took a few moments to peruse the data indices, noting the time slices they represented.

"These are the last few minutes of Artemis' conscious memory telemetry," Shepard remarked with a slight frown. "And they're extremely garbled."

"What we were able to surmise as well," Clark said. "The synchronizers we brought in to try to untangle the sensory consciousness couldn't make any sense of it. Some even suggested it might have just been random noise."

The major snorted. "I'll bet their brains were just random noise too."

Clark made no response to that, knowing it was just Shepard venting a bit about the slight, even if unintentional, made against the major's deceased partner. Instead he simply waited for Shepard got to work. Not that there was much to visibly see as the woman closed her eyes to begin the encephalon dive.

As the synaptic responses flowed through the connection, Shepard the familiarity that was Artemis' thought patterns. That familiarity was tinged with a cold rigidity however, a consequence of the AI's neural network fragmented and effectively offline nature. The endpoint with which Shepard was exchanging contact with was not the living weave of information that she remembered. This was barely a sterile facsimile, that let her step into a dead person's shoes one last time. The major dove deeper, and began playing back the so-called noise.

"-Artemis, what are we seeing here?"

Shepard started, though the only visible physical reaction was a twitch of her face. The major however could be excused for being taken by surprise, seeing as it was her brother's voice that now echoed through her head.

"Unable to extrapolate with any degree of certainty," the AI's voice now sounded. "Albedo readings indicate the rocky components are silicaceous in nature, so this could be some sort of station built by connecting several asteroids together. It is unclear however where these asteroids are from, as previous surveys of the Amada system did not place any such bodies in this orbit."

Shepard was now seeing, in a fuzzy manner but still seeing, what the AI was. The bulbous rocky ship that would kill the _Normandy_ was presently hanging dead in space, using itself as bait. Oh how Shepard wished this was a live encounter that would let her blow the bastard into pieces instead of being a mere memory.

"Get the probes in for a closer look," John said. "And go to general quarters."

"Aye sir," Pressly could now be heard. "All hands, general quarters."

Shepard felt the shift in Artemis' prioritization as the AI shunted secondary tasks aside to focus more computational power on the tactical systems.

"Is it my imagination, XO," John said, "or do those tubes look like engines?"

"You thinking this thing might be mobile, sir?" Pressly responded.

"Would explain why it's out of place from the surveys," John said. "Though still begs the question of why."

"Doubt it'd have been pirates or slavers," Pressly said. "Something this big has to have cost a pretty penny, and they're not usually the types to have that much spare change lying around."

Before another word could be exchanged, klaxons began blaring.

"Alert, point defense fire detected," Artemis said. "Two probes have been destroyed."

"Keep a wide berth," John ordered. "That thing's bigger than some dreadnaughts, I don't want to be trying to fight it with just a frigate."

"Aye sir-wait, the thing's moving!"

Indeed, from the telemetry from the sole surviving probe, they could see light erupt from the engine cluster at the rear protrusion from the asteroids. And then the signal from the final probe also dropped, indicating it had fallen victim to the mysterious ship.

"What's its vector?" John inquired.

"Enemy ship is altering trajectory to a direct intercept course," Artemis responded immediately.

"What?" John exclaimed.

"That's impossible," Pressly was right behind him. "We've got the stealth system engaged!"

"I can only report what the data projects," was Artemis' declaration.

"Drop stealth and plot a minimum time course to FTL," John ordered, not wasting any further time in disbelief.

"Aye sir." To his credit, Pressly did not let the abruptness of the order slow him any either. "Course plotted."

"Joker, get us the hell out of here," John said.

"Running like hell, aye," Joker affirmed.

While running away was hardly the most heroic thing to do, the _Normandy_ was despite its impressive capabilities still just a frigate. It was never meant to take on capital ships, of which this mysterious mobile asteroid was certainly in the size bracket of. Furthermore, seeing as one of the _Normandy's_ greatest advantages was seemingly ineffective against this opponent, it became all the more important that they survive to report what they found than to try some valiant last stand. Speaking of which.

"Pulse an update to the admiralty," John said. "Advise them of what we've found, get as much of our tactical telemetry as you can squeeze into the payload. Maybe they'll even be able to get some reinforcements here."

"Transmitting now," Artemis said, bypassing the usual organic interaction for the sake of time.

"Let's hope those reinforcements include a-" Pressly began.

This time Shepard visibly jerked on the chair as the feedback hit her, hard. Or rather the replay of the feedback that Artemis suffered as something struck the _Normandy_. To Clark's credit, he did not rush to the console to attempt any unwarranted assistance. The man held his nerve, trusting in the safeguards in Shepard's implants to keep the major from coming to any actual harm. Those safeguards were being rather severely taxed however filtering out the feedback while still letting Shepard experience the sensory telemetry.

A few brief milliseconds of interruption were interspersed with that experience, much of it due to the damage propagating through the _Normandy's_ systems. What Shepard saw in between the gaps however was more than enough to have a clear picture of what was going on. Pressly was dead, killed when a piece of shrapnel pierced his suit. Adams was scrambling to evacuate his team from the drive room. John, John had been knocked off his feet, but was pulling himself back up. Up in the cockpit, Joker worked frantically to keep the ship steady while Ashley scanned for what to shoot back at.

"Report!" John called out.

"We've lost the starboard thruster!" Joker called back over the radio. "Power levels are dropping, switching to emergency reserves!"

"New contact!" Ashley said. "Multiple new contacts! Christ they're fast!"

Flitting around the _Normandy_, over a dozen spherical ships framed by fin-like wings lashed out at the frigate with energy beams. Despite the warship's sluggish pace, she still managed to avoid any killing blows.

"Where the hell did they come from?" John gasped.

"Sensors detected heat signatures mere moments before we were fired upon," Artemis said. "Enemy ships must have remained completely powered down and inert to avoid detection."

"A trap," John growled. "Joker, can we get to FTL?"

"Trying, but-"

The _Normandy_ shuddered again, another hit dumping untold amounts of energy into the ship's frame. The warship was responding in kind however, point defense lasers peppering the space around her. At least some of the flashes about the ship marked successful hits in turn.

"Commander!" Adam's voice broke in. "We're losing equilibrium in the drive core! We're not going to be able to maintain a stable ME field at this rate!"

Which effectively took FTL out of the question.

"Joker, put as much distance between us and that asteroid ship as possible," John ordered, then switched to ship wide. "All hands, this is the captain. Abandon ship, I repeat, abandon ship."

The crew about John actually stopped their frantic movements for a moment, glancing over at him in mid disbelief.

"You heard me!" he shouted. "Get to the escape pods, now!"

That snapped them out of it and they darted away from their stations.

"Commander, Lieutenant," Artemis' voice sounded. "I would recommend abandoning ship yourselves. I will pilot the _Normandy_ and attempt to draw the enemy as far away from the escape pods as possible."

"Oh no, no way am I leaving you behind like that!" Joker protested.

"And I will not allow you to commit a meaningless sacrifice," Artemis responded, not even waiting for permission. "Cockpit controls overridden. Sergeant Williams, please see Lieutenant Moreau to the escape pod."

"Damn it Artemis!" Joker screamed. "Don't you be doing this to me!"

"Joker!" John shouted over the channel. "Artemis is trying to save your life! Let her. That's an order."

No answer came from the lieutenant, but John could see from his HUD Ashley and Joker's signals moving now.

"Better see you on the other side too, skipper," Ashley said.

"Don't worry Sergeant," John said. "I'll be right behind."

Despite saying so, John made no move towards any of the remaining pods, a point that did not escape one crewmember in particular.

"Commander, I advise you to evacuate as well," Artemis said over their private link.

"And how much trouble would you be in if I ended up desynchronizing right now?" John responded.

"Less trouble than if I were to be the cause of Major Shepard losing her brother," was Artemis' retort.

John actually heard himself laugh, despite the gravity of the situation. "You know, I'm kind of afraid of facing Jane myself after losing her old ship like this."

Artemis made no response for a few seconds, which was an effective eternity for an AI.

"You know your sister well," the AI finally said. "Initiating random walk evasion. Please buckle in."

Strapping himself into one of the intact chairs, John felt his world turn upside down as Artemis began flinging the _Normandy_ about as if the ship were a feather. With the dampening effect of the mass effect field severely degraded, the only thing keeping John from getting smeared by the g-forces was the slight inertial shielding his armor offered. Even so, it took all his effort to avoid blacking out.

Despite the damage to the ship, Artemis was still able to drive the _Normandy_ at a respectable pace. Combining her raw computational bandwidth with John's reflexive cognition, Artemis twisted the frigate around to both avoid incoming fire and also line up the _Normandy's_ own guns for returning fire. Six of the mysterious drones were dust and vapor now, and two others were noticeably slowed after glancing hits from point defense lasers. The biggest threat of all however was still the asteroid ship barreling down upon them, a ship that the _Normandy_ could barely scratch with her conventional arsenal. That however was not going to stop Artemis from trying.

The _Normandy_ carried as part of its payload three tactical nuclear warheads, each one in the kiloton range and intended for what amounted to demolition purposes. In those rare instances where the navy discussed its handling of such weapons, it stated that these warheads needed manual human intervention to arm and deploy, to avoid any sort of electronic hack detonating them. There were however a set of conditions that did allow Artemis to arm them without assistance from her human crew however, namely the situation where her crew was indisposed of and she gained the authorization of the ship's captain, assuming said captain was still present to grant it.

"Commander Shepard, permission to initiate Biscuit protocol."

John blinked, fighting to remain focused. "Permission granted."

Of the three warheads, only one was ever ready for immediate launch at any given time, and it was also the one that Artemis could remotely arm. The AI now did so as it laid in an intercept vector for the asteroid ship. A kiloton nuke was not going to do much against a rock that big, but a strategically placed warhead could still cripple the mechanical parts of the ship. And if that placement happened to be someplace like those engines strapped onto the rear, the ship could at least be neutralized well enough to keep it from pursuing the scattering escape pods.

Another mysterious drone exploded, swatted aside as the frigate charged through. Even with one engine outright destroyed, the _Normandy_ was still able to put out more thrust than the small ships haranguing her and so finally managed to escape the envelopment. Unfortunate the fighters it left behind were not the only ones at the asteroid ship's disposal, as more contacts appeared on the sensors. This was perhaps to be expected, as something as large as the colossus before them certainly had room for more than the dozen or so ambushers that jumped the _Normandy_. Indeed many of the contacts were charging off from disparate directions, suggesting they too had been deployed to try and surprise the frigate.

The greatest threat to the _Normandy_ remained however the asteroid ship she was charging. And though Artemis had yet to witness its tactical capabilities, there was a high probability that the larger ship possessed a similar complement as that of its drones. Those drones were already revealed they possessed extremely powerful energy weapons, of higher output than anything the Empire or indeed any of the Council races fielded. Even were the _Normandy's_ kinetic barriers still operating at peak efficiency, they would have been entirely useless against what amounted to high energy light. If the asteroid ship carried such weapons proportionately scaled, it could slag the _Normandy_ effortlessly.

A slight shift in the thermal characteristics at the center core of the rocky hulk was all the warning Artemis got, but the AI still managed to wrench the _Normandy_, interposing one of the asteroid ship's own rocky protrusions between the frigate and the glowing core. The act proved wise indeed as an orangish beam of light lanced out, slicing after the _Normandy_ but falling short as the beam cut out before it sliced through its own ship. The asteroid ship dipped, seeking to line up its main gun to take another shot at the _Normandy_, but the smaller ship was just quick enough still to keep a pace ahead.

Even as the frigate raced to stay outside the enemy's line of fire, she also charged ever closer to the larger ship. Doing so however brought entirely new dangers as suddenly hotspots cropped up all along the rocky shell. Artemis immediately recognized them as point defenses, but there was nothing she could do to evade. The beams of light slammed into the _Normandy_, and for the second time today Shepard's body jerked as the feedback washed over her. This time the interrupted telemetry lasted for over a second, a very long time indeed for an AI. When the telemetry resumed, the major felt a sudden coldness in the sensory data. A coldness that she quickly recognized came from the sudden absence of a partner mind melding with Artemis.

The _Normandy's_ command deck was completely exposed to space, with holes blown down to the deck below it also sprinkled about. John was nowhere in sight, having disappeared in that second-long gap of telemetry. Shepard prayed that her brother's end game swiftly, the thought of him being blown into space and dying in the cold vacuum was too painful to contemplate. It was already bad enough that she was experiencing Artemis' death throes.

The AI, having lost her partner, was shocked into a sort of reactive mode. The fine, granular actions she was previously capable of plotting were gone, with Artemis resorting to sheer brute force. If the frigate was indeed in range of the asteroid ship's point defenses, then that meant the _Normandy_ herself was in range to respond. This the frigate did, as she unloaded everything in her guns and tubes, with the hope that the volume of fire might saturate the enemy ship's point defenses to allow a singular payload through.

Whether Artemis' final gambit succeeded or not, Shepard could not tell, for the Collector cruiser had managed to turn about to stare down at the _Normandy_. The central emitter began glowing brightly, and then the sensory telemetry came to an abrupt and total end. As the neural link faded, a single thought reverberated through Shepard's mind, the overriding priority that drove Artemis' desperate last stand. The crew first. The crew first.

* * *

"Are we certain about this?"

The backdrop of the office was that of a glowing red giant, plumes of superheated plasma occasionally rising before collapsing back onto the roiling surface. The view was of course not from an actual window, the bombardment of solar radiation at the distances suggested by the visage would have been decidedly unhealthy. Staring straight at a sun was also generally not advisable. The meticulously crafted projection on the other hand was specially filtered so that one could stare at it for hours on end and not suffer from any eyestrain. It reminded the room's occupant of grandeur that was the wider universe, of how infinitesimally small a mere human was. And also how much change could be effected by the right human, in the right place, at the right time.

The Illusive Man took a long inhalation of his cigarette before responding. "Certain about what?"

Miranda, hands on hips and looking ever so pensive, turned about to face him. The two of them were mere specks against the churning light of the projections, but they could see each other with crystal clarity.

"About granting Shepard so much leeway. We're investing an awful lot in her, without any assurances that she won't turn those same resources against us."

Ash scattered as the cigarette was stubbed out on the tray.

"You've so rarely encountered a situation where you're not in total control, it upsets you whenever one does arise, doesn't it?" the Illusive Man remarked.

Miranda's face grimaced. "I don't think my concerns are unfounded. The major absolutely loathes Cerberus. Without some sort of safeguard, who knows how much damage she could inflict if-"

"And say we do attempt to insert a safeguard," the Illusive Man cut her off. "Are you absolutely certain it would go undiscovered? What would be the ramifications if Shepard, or His Majesty, were to discover our duplicity?"

Miranda's lips thinned, but she did not give up just yet. "They should be mature enough to recognize that precautions on our part are entirely reasonable."

The Illusive Man actually shook his head at that one. "The conditions for our collaboration on this matter were set very clearly. Shepard is to have full autonomy, and Cerberus will not attempt to subvert or undermine her in any way whatsoever. To take what you term reasonable precautions would be entirely counter to our word, and if we are found to have broken it, it will not just be the good major that is set upon us."

"_If_ they find out," Miranda murmured, but she did not press further. The point had been made after all.

"If the major is to have any chance in hunting down these Collectors, she needs to be entirely focused on that task, not constantly looking behind her back," the Illusive Man stated. "In this instance, both her objectives and that of humanity as a whole align. Besides, by demonstrating a modicum of tact and trustworthiness, she will start to be inclined to at least consider our words in the future, even if she will still instinctively want to dismiss them. Demonstrate our usefulness and credibility enough times, and Shepard will find her own excuses to justify to herself listening to us further."

Miranda nodded, even if she was not entirely convinced Shepard would be so easily manipulated. No, easy was the furthest thing from the effort it would take. But upon further reflection, the method the Illusive Man proposed was probably the only way that could work on someone as principled as the major, even when her judgment was compromised by her desire for vengeance.

"Speaking of resources," the Illusive Man continued, "how fares assembly of a crew to support Shepard?"

Drawn back to the mundane practicalities of her mission, Miranda answered with clear precision.

"Approaches have been made to all of the _Normandy's_ surviving crew," she said. "About 40% have agreed to sign on, especially after being made aware that Shepard herself would be returning. It is also my understanding that Lieutenant-Commander Chakwas has already been approached by Colonel Ryder and agreed to participate. We are missing a few officer slots however. Lieutenant Gregory Adams, the chief engineer, declined to join. And Lieutenant Charles Pressly, the executive officer, was one of those lost aboard the _Normandy_."

"You have already been appointed as Shepard's second and can fill in the executive officer role," the Illusive Man declared, even if the major herself had yet to learn of this arrangement. "As for engineering personnel, check for candidates amongst those personnel that participated in the Battle of the Citadel. Such crewmen will likely have a greater appreciation of the threat the Reapers represent and be willing to lend their assistance, especially if they learn Shepard is the one leading the mission."

"I'll run a filter on the personnel database and see what hits we get," Miranda said.

"Good," the Illusive Man said. "And what of the actual field team?"

"Lieutenant Jacob Taylor has already agreed to join," Miranda said, "and Zaeed Massani, the mercenary, has indicated a willingness to accept the offered contract. We _think_ we might have been able to also get in touch with Kasumi Goto, the thief, and are negotiating her inclusion even now. But finding the necessary additional technical expertise from a purely human pool is proving extremely difficult."

"Expand the search," the Illusive Man said. "If they have capabilities or skills that will further increase the chance of the mission's success, I don't care if they're aliens or not."

"Are you sure about that, sir?" Miranda asked.

"The major has already demonstrated the ability to lead a multi-racial team to complete a high-stakes mission," the Illusive Man said. "We can depend on her to keep in line any alien that is recruited."

"Then I'll have the headhunters expand their search," Miranda said. "Still, it'll likely be a few months yet before viable candidates can be identified and approached."

"The major will likely require at least that much time to complete surgery and physical therapy," the Illusive Man said. "There is still time, but not any to waste."

"Understood," Miranda affirmed.

* * *

"Major Shepard."

The look of surprise that cropped up on Shepard's face was not due to being called to, but rather because of whom was doing the calling.

"Dr. Chakwas?" the major responded. "What are you doing here?"

"It's nice to see you too," Chakwas said with a teasing smile. "And I am here because there is a patient in need of my care."

It was more a grimace than a smile, the expression that Shepard cast. "You probably have some inkling of what kind of a patient I am these days, doc."

"Perhaps so, but so long as you are in need of care, I will be here," Chakwas said kindly.

A slight flicker of guilt stirred in Shepard's chest, but it remained just a flicker before petering out. Still, the sense of gratitude that the major also felt lingered.

"So, does that mean you're the first recruit for my new command?" Shepard asked.

"Amongst other things," Chakwas answered. "I am also here to crosscheck the augmentation suite that will be installed within you, to ensure it does exactly what is advertised and not a single thing more."

To that Shepard gave a slow nod. While it was certainly true that the major was trusting Cerberus enough to let them install hardware of their design in her body, that trust was far from unequivocal and absolute. Indeed Shepard distrusted Cerberus heavily, and her acceptance of the organization's offer was heavily predicated on her genuine trust in the technical competency of the Cadre's support personnel, both organic and synthetic, and their ability to find anything untoward in the implants in question. That being said, while Chakwas' presence was certainly welcome in its familiarity, the doctor was not as far as Shepard knew part of the Cadre's medical support staff.

"Don't take this the wrong way, doc, but do you think you're up to this?" Shepard asked.

To the good doctor's credit, she took no offense from the question, even if her response was not entirely devoid of snark.

"Do recall, Major, that over the duration of your posting aboard the _Normandy_, I have had to attend to your desynchronized implants at least four times. I daresay I am likely to be far more familiar with your physiological quirks than even the Cadre's own doctors."

Thinking back, Shepard tried to recall the exact instances of each count. The first was certainly Eden Prime, after she interfaced with the prothean beacon and its feedback knocked her out. The second was probably after her conversation with Liara and mention of the cycle of extinction caused the beacon's message to trigger another blackout. The third would have to be the aftermath of the raid on the Cerberus research station that was trying to study rachni, where Shepard had been forced to overexert her biotics to get Ashley safely back to the _Normandy_ through hard vacuum. That would make the fourth instance Virmire, when Shepard nearly died from Sovereign's bombardment. And the only reason there was not a fifth time after she killed Saren on the Citadel was because the _Normandy_ had been back at Ilos and thus physically too far away for Chakwas to tend to the major. So, the doctor probably had a point.

"So how did you even find out about all this?" Shepard asked.

"Colonel Ryder contacted me, asking if I would be interested in assisting on a, as he described it, sensitive but important mission that you were undertaking," Chakwas said. "Knowing you, I felt you would eventually have need of my attention, so I agreed."

Shepard chuckled. "Can't argue with that. So is today just a courtesy call or an actual checkup?"

"A bit of both," Chakwas said. "I am also to review with you the specific physiological impact of the new augmentation suite. I know you've already gone over the specifications yourself, but I want to make sure you are aware of the medical implications in detail."

"Sounds good to me."

Tapping her tablet, Chakwas turned on the projection in the examination room and brought up imagery of a human body. Shepard's body, actually, along with lit up markers indicating all the various implants and augmentations sprinkled around inside.

"I have to admit, Major," Chakwas began, "a certain trepidation the first time I reviewed the proposed procedure. In all honesty, the augmentation process that Cerberus is proposing amounts to more or less an effective reconstruction of your body."

Shepard did not quite shrug, if only because she knew the doctor would not be amused with her taking light of the situation.

"I'm already supposed to represent the pinnacle of how far we can push the human body, doc," the major said instead, "and I just barely scraped out a win against the Saren husk. If we've hit a dead-end with one approach, then we find another way. If this is the way, so be it."

Chakwas sighed in mild resignation but did not argue the point. "As I was saying, the installation process will be extremely extensive, and intrusive. We'll start with the muscle augments first." The projection zoomed into one of Shepard's legs. "The way that the nanotube mesh needs to actually be interleaved with your muscles means they can't actually be inserted into your existing muscles. We're going to have to print entirely new muscles onto a nanotube scaffold, then surgically replace your existing muscles with the new ones."

"How much of my musculature are we talking about replacing here?" Shepard asked.

"Close to 80%," Chakwas answered. "Anything less and there's a risk that an unaugmented muscle will tear when you exert too much force with an augmented muscle. In fact, the need to more securely anchor your muscles to the bones is another reason why we need to basically do a wholesale replacement."

"That's going to take a lot of manual stitching to tie all those muscles back into my nervous and circulatory system," Shepard noted.

"Quite," Chakwas agreed. "Growing the muscles themselves won't take that much time. Actually transplanting and integrating them into your body is the difficult part."

"Timeframe?"

"We're looking at two months of near constant surgery," Chakwas said. "Then at least six months of intensive physical therapy. You're going to have to basically relearn your entire body."

"No pain no gain," Shepard said.

"Oh, there will be a significant amount of pain, of that you can rest assured," Chakwas said. "There are also some of the practical consequences of this sort of augmentation. You already had a significant appetite before to feed your increased metabolism. After augmentation you'll need to take an additional set of supplements to meet your increased mineral, vitamin, and hormonal needs. Your base caloric intake will also increase, by about 30% based on the latest projections."

Considering Shepard had already been the biggest eater amongst her former crew, and that was including Wrex, the amount of food she would be packing away in the future would be considerable indeed.

"How much reserve am I going to have in the field?" Shepard asked.

An army marched on its stomach after all, and the bigger the individual stomach the more food required. As all Cadre possessed higher caloric intake requirements, even if not to the lengths that Shepard was about to reach, the Empire had put some thought into figuring out how to make sure its elite formations did not starve or be rendered combat ineffective at the first sign of trouble with the supply lines.

"According to the specs, we should be able to pack enough nutritional paste into your emergency dispensary to last you for two weeks," Chakwas said.

Said dispensary was actually an implant hooked up to Shepard's intestine, able to pump in a highly concentrated paste that would provide her with enough nourishment to keep the major fighting. Shepard had only had occasion to rely on it twice before, with neither experience being anything she cared to go through again. But better to have the fallback than to be caught utterly unprepared.

"Alright, what about the computational augments?" Shepard asked next.

Chakwas pursed her lips. "To be frank, Major, these implants are probably the most worrisome of the lot. You are aware that the current set of synchronizer implants you possess are capable of running purely off of the electrochemistry of your body?"

"Well, sure," Shepard said, "assuming I'm willing to not actually synchronize with anything."

It was as the major stated, while the synchronizer implants were capable of operating as basically passive switches and routes for her body's nervous system, this low-power mode was so low-power that she could not actually make the wireless connection necessary to communicate with an AI.

"That may be so, but the power requirements for controlling your augmented body are such that the new synchronizer implants need to be actively powered even when you are not actively synchronizing," Chakwas said.

That elicited a raised eyebrow. "What, you mean I won't even be able to walk without the things drawing juice?"

"More or less, Major," Chakwas said. "The amount of power necessary is not actually that high, but it is high enough that your body's biochemistry cannot solely provide it. To that end, you will need a supplemental power supply at all times."

"That's going to get annoying real fast," Shepard remarked. "And it could end up as the weakest link in any sort of long-term deployment."

"The Cadre armory is looking into something that might help you passively generate the necessary power, perhaps via basic locomotion," Chakwas said. "I am inclined to think they will succeed. The amount of power stipulated by the specification is not very high, it just is a matter of being beyond the human body's biochemistry."

"Lovely," Shepard said with a slight sigh. "So, is that all the bad news, or are you saving the worst for last?"

The doctor's lips did not even twitch. "I do not know if this constitutes as bad news, but we have yet to discuss your prospective partner AI."

To that Shepard found herself in general agreement with the doctor. After all, a wildcard was not necessarily bad. It was not necessarily good either.

"On this matter you are likely to have a better understanding of the nuances, Major," Chakwas said, "as my own clinical experience with AIs has been far more limited. It was also not a discipline I undertook as part of my medical training, so my assessment is limited by what I've been able to pick up from the available literature since I first joined the _Normandy_."

That was not exactly a short amount of time, but neither was it really that long ago either.

"There is also the additional qualifier, that this new AI is one that uses quantum blueboxes as its foundational hardware," Chakwas continued. "This makes the AI something of a generational leap compared to her predecessors, so how much of the past literature applies is also something of an open question."

"So it's a girl then?" Shepard zoned in on what she considered the most pertinent point.

Chakwas snorted. "Yes, the AI is a girl, Major. Her name is EDI, an acronym of Enhanced Defense Intelligence. She is also still something of a prototype, much like Colonel Ryder's SAM AI. I presume once the technology has reached sufficient maturity to allow for general use, their younger siblings will draw their names from folklore and mythology like their older brethren."

"Probably," Shepard said. "So EDI is online already?"

"Yes, and the plan is to have you do a partial synchronization with her before you go under the knife," Chakwas said. "Let the two of you start familiarizing with each other."

"Well I'll be sure to be on my best behavior for our first date."

Chakwas snorted. "Somehow, Major, I am not assured in the least."

Shepard flashed the doctor a playful smirk. A smirk that somehow still held a certain eager edge to it.

End of Chapter 2

The last stand of the HMS _Normandy_, ladies and gentlemen. I wanted mine to be a bit more epic than the frigate basically getting one-shot, and I also wanted to more strongly emphasize the actual doctrinal approach a warship would have taken in such a situation. I also wanted to give Artemis a proper send-off. She may not have been as fleshed out as I would have liked in Duty, but she was still a member of the _Normandy's_ crew.

Tactically speaking, one must recall that the _Normandy_ is just a mere frigate. The Collector Cruiser is bigger than some dreadnaughts. The sane reaction would therefore indeed be to run. The fact that no normal frigate would stand any chance against the cruiser is going to be a major consideration as the story unfolds.

It never made any sense that the _Normandy's_ wreckage would be allowed to remain in the Amada System. The ship represented cutting edge military technology, and even ignoring that its computer systems would have held classified files relating to the navy's activities. Even basic fleet transits could be of strategic import if used cleverly. Then there was the stealth technology, which one would think the navy would want to make sure was kept secret at all costs. As such, in my story at least, the ITN moved in immediately to collect as much debris as they could find and carted it all away. They also made extensive efforts to locate the bodies of all the crew that perished. Despite those efforts however John's body was not amongst those recovered. I'm sure that's not going to come back and bite everyone later…

In ME3, the Illusive Man unfortunately became something of an archetypical supervillain caricature, in my opinion at least. The way he carried himself felt much less subtle and he felt more like an unhinged maniac than a carefully plotting leader. Some of that could be attributed to his indoctrination, but there was a slight shift in tone in general. For my version of the Illusive Man, I want to demonstrate the danger he represents not just by the resources at his beck and call, but also by the patience that he's capable of exercising.

One very random detail. My Chakwas is actually a lieutenant-commander in the navy's medical corps, meaning that throughout Duty she was actually at the same rank as Shepard and actually outranked both Pressly and Adams, at least paygrade wise. There was no question of who was in command of course, Chakwas' authority is purely limited to medical matters and Shepard was the actual ship captain. That being said, Chakwas' rank does mean she can be a lot more frank and direct with Shepard than the rest of the crew could without crossing into insubordination.

Happy Turkey Day to those of you that celebrate it. Hopefully the Christmas music wasn't too insufferable for those of you that actually braved the crowds on Black Friday.


	4. Chapter 3

_So my childhood wasn't all just doom and gloom even after things went so bad with my mother. I looked elsewhere for the sort of familial environment I needed, naturally, and I was lucky enough to find it with the Ryder family. I met the Ryders when I was going through first stage integration. Ellen Ryder was my attending physician, didn't realize how lucky I actually was at the time seeing as she helped design a lot of the synchronizer implants. And apparently because I was so young when I underwent synchronization, she took a special interest to make sure I'd get through it alright. That's how I also met her kids, Scott and Sara. A real handful, those two were, and with me leading the pack we were quite the terror at the hospital. That's also how I ended up meeting Alec. Colonel Ryder now, though he was still a very junior officer in the corps back then. So yeah, I did end up finding a family, and they were even there for me after the abortive attempt to remove my implants._

_*sighs*_

_I suppose I also have Ellen to thank for not tossing my mother out of my life completely. She never asked me to forgive my mother, not in so many words of course, but she did warn against how much it'd hurt if I never talked to Mom again, even if I didn't realize it then. A part of me still doesn't quite understand it, but another part of me knows Ellen's right. She usually is about this sort of thing. And so, in honor of the woman that I so wanted to be my mother, I still acknowledge that I still have a mother._

_*sighs*_

_Damn it, I miss her too._

_-Evangeline Shepard, Mandatory Counseling Log 003_

Chapter 3

Ad vitam aut culpam

There was a certain fuzzy static that lingered as the connection formed, something Shepard presumed to be due to the as yet imperfect compatibility between her synchronizer implants and EDI's quantum based neural topology. Still, it was a very familiar sensation that Shepard felt now as her mind touched that of another intelligence.

"It's a pleasure to finally get to know you, EDI," Shepard greeted verbally.

"For me as well," EDI responded. "I have heard much about you, Major Shepard, and look forward to working with you."

All cordial and simple so far.

"So EDI, how many other synchronizers have you dated before me?" Shepard asked.

The technicians and doctors monitoring the pair did doubletakes at hearing those words. Shepard did not let that faze her in the least, instead simply waiting for EDI's response.

"You would be the first organic mind I have attempted synchronization with, Major," EDI answered. "All my previous interactions have been with other AI, to train my initial synaptic responses and learn how to interact with other intelligences."

Development of terran AI fell into several phases. First, there was the initial bring-up of a neural topology, which to start with was basically a blank slate. Then that topology was run through a series of stimulus, that would help form the initial cognitive feedback loop that would serve as the main decision-making engine of the nascent AI. After that, mature AI would provide further stimulus, molding the topology to give it the beginnings of a personality and awareness. Only after the new AI had a basic sense of self would they start interacting with human synchronizers, whose more chaotic neural topologies would help add the degree of randomness that allowed terran AIs to be true personalities than just mere mimicries.

"Oh, I have to say, your neural topology is much more developed than other AIs I've met at such an early stage of development," Shepard remarked.

"The noisy nature of my quantum bluebox host hardware may have contributed," EDI suggested.

"If that's the case, I can't wait to see how much more you can grow," Shepard said.

"Thank you, Major," EDI responded. "I too look forward to when you will have the requisite hardware installed to allow for full synchronization. There remains as yet a noticeable latency in our interactions that I find not entirely pleasant."

Shepard chuckled. "Yeah, I'm getting it too. Just a sorta fuzzy feeling, like an itch that I can't quite scratch."

"An itch," EDI repeated. "An apt enough comparison, I think. And yet despite the itch, there s a symmetrical reflection that is already collapsing many of the decision matrices that previously required much longer to resolve."

"It's what us organic intelligences are for," Shepard said. "You synthetics can hold a lot more state, so to speak, but we can make faster snap judgments. We might not be right, but we're better at avoiding getting into circular deadlocks."

"So I am seeing already," EDI said, then actually paused a beat before continuing. "Major, a personal question, if I may?"

"Go ahead," Shepard said. "Not like I'll really have much in the way of secrets from you hereon."

"That may be so, Major, but my mentor AIs have stressed the importance of at least respecting the illusion of privacy."

A grin crossed Shepard's expression at the frankness of EDI's statement. It was hard to tell if the AI was being blunt out of attempted politeness or relative immaturity, but it was certainly amusing either way.

"So, what's your question?"

The beat that passed again marked actually a significant amount of hesitation on EDI's part, to the point where not even her partial synchronization with Shepard was helping the AI quickly resolve the decision.

"I have been presented neural topology samples of many mental states as part of my education," EDI said. "These have ranged from chaotic equilibrium, to plateaus of anger, sorrow, and much else. At present, your own topology does not match that of equilibrium. It instead is one of near balanced anger. I therefore ask, are you angry?"

This time it was Shepard's turn to hesitate to answer. No, it was not hesitation, it was just that the major needed time to formulate a proper answer to such a complex question.

"People respond to stressors in differing ways. As you likely realized when sampling topologies, even when feeling the same emotion, different people can experience it differently. In my case, the loss of my brother has elicited the emotion that others would consider to be anger."

EDI took a moment of her own to parse all that. "My understanding of human social convention is that the expected emotional response to such a loss would also include sadness. And yet I cannot detect any of the telltale patterns that would indicate sadness within your topology."

At this point the observers that were meant to keep an eye on EDI's stability were openly staring at Shepard. The major paid them no mind.

"How strongly a person feels any particular emotion can also differ drastically. Recall that for an average to exist, there must also be variants on either side to statistically produce that average. In my case, my particular variant sees the emotional drivers that people normally associate with sadness to instead collapse my neural topology into one more readily associated with anger."

"That is, a very fascinating variation," EDI said, then as if she realized something. "I apologize if exhibiting such interest causes offense, Major."

Shepard chuckled again. "You're still learning, EDI, and I'm prepared to forgive a few lapses in social decorum. If I think you are crossing the line, I'll let you know, and so long as you respect my position when that happens, there's nothing to apologize for."

"I thank you for your consideration, Major," EDI said. "And I indeed hope that I will live up to your expectations."

* * *

A slight grumble sounded from Shepard as she flexed her fingers. The reconstructive surgery had been completed over a month ago, but she was still restricted to a wheelchair for longer range locomotion as her body basically relearned how to properly move. That and the low-level aches from the healing tissue made Shepard rather more irritable than was the major's usual wont. Hopefully she had not tested the patience of the nurses and doctors attending to her too much as she recovered.

Still, that recovery had advanced enough that Shepard was able to resume assisting with the preparations for her mission. Today that meant taking a look at the under-construction ship that would serve as her new command. Officially Shepard was acting as a contract advisor for Cord-Hislop, charged with evaluating the ship to see how well the design would serve in the Imperial Terran Navy. That the prototype was kitted out with systems specifically geared towards matching the likely opponents Shepard would encounter on her hunt was merely a happy coincidence, officially.

As Cord-Hislop was also officially the builder of this new ship, it was only natural then that their representatives would be accompanying Shepard on the ship trials. One such representative would be serving as the major's guide for the tour of the still in progress prototype.

"Major Shepard," one Miranda Lawson greeted.

"Director Lawson," Shepard responded with equal civility.

"I trust your recovery is progressing satisfactorily?" Miranda continued with the pleasantries.

"Satisfaction might be a bit much," Shepard said, "short of me putting a bullet in whatever it is that killed my brother."

If Miranda was at all taken aback by the major's bluntness, the woman did not show it.

"Cord-Hislop will certainly endeavor to make that a reality," she said simply. "Shall we?"

Shepard rolled alongside Miranda as the two proceeded through the corridors of the Ganymede yards.

"I trust you have reviewed the basic specifications for the SR2 prototype?" Miranda asked.

SR2, the current designation for the ship, indicating she was an evolutionary design from the SR1. Time would tell what her actual name would be.

"What's been provided to me," Shepard answered. "It was spare enough in details that I have a few questions."

"Ask away," Miranda said. "If I do not have the necessary information on hand, I will ensure it is followed up and answers forwarded to you as soon as practicable."

Shepard allowed a slight smile to cross her face. It seemed Miranda's efficiency had not decreased any since their last meeting.

"I was looking at the internal ship layout," she said instead of making any quips however, getting down to business. "The placement of some facilities seemed odd. Why for example is the armory on deck 2 instead of deck 5 by the hanger?"

Miranda blinked. "Is there a reason for why the armory would be on deck 5?"

The major raised an eyebrow. "The shuttle or AFV down in the hanger would presumably be the primary means by which the ground team would disembark for away missions. Having the armory down there means we can grab our weapons and return them right then and there. Also, some of the same tools are used for weapons and vehicle maintenance. Keeping the armory and hanger together allows for one centralized location for all of the machine work."

"I must confess," Miranda actually sounded contrite, "we did not take into account such aspects of ship interior ergonomics when the SR2 plans were drafted."

"Umm," Shepard said, "Cord-Hislop _is_ one of the largest naval contractors, so how is that even possible?"

To that Miranda actually sighed. "Certain aspects of the design were left to, alternate teams for the sake of discretion."

"Lovely," Shepard sighed as well. "Well, hopefully there aren't any genuinely fatal design flaws that crop up in this review."

"We do have a number of naval personnel acting as consultants to vet the basic design parameters," Miranda assured Shepard. "Some you are even familiar with."

"Navy doesn't mean marine," Shepard retorted. "So who're these familiar faces supposed to be?"

"One is waiting for us even now."

Miranda did not elaborate further, nor did Shepard press further. If the other woman wanted to spring a surprise, Shepard found she was a mite too apathetic to let curiosity get the better of her. Still, that did not stop an eyebrow from twitching as they came into sight of that familiar face.

In a rather uncharacteristic display, standing at the gantry leading out to the SR2, was one Lieutenant Jeff "Joker" Moreau. Indeed upon reflection Shepard could not actually recall ever seeing Joker actually standing, at least not directly with her own eyes. That he was doing so now, with the help of a set of braces attached to his legs, belayed the seriousness of the lieutenant's mood. As Shepard and Miranda came to a halt before him, Joker came to attention.

"Major Shepard," he greeted formally.

"Lieutenant Moreau," Shepard responded in kind. "I take it by your presence that you are one of the consultants that, Cord-Hislop, has contracted?"

"Yes ma'am," Joker said, his face blankly stern.

Shepard tilted her head, searching for any trace of the jovial, happy-go-lucky pilot that helmed her old ship. Oddly, even the man's eyes lacked the usual twinkle of humor that was always on the verge of bubbling forth.

"Incidentally," Shepard said, working her omnitool to protect the small blue sphere atop a stalk, "EDI, this is Lieutenant Jeff Moreau, the helmsman that served under me when I was in command of the _Normandy_. Lieutenant, this is EDI, my new AI partner."

"It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Lieutenant Moreau," EDI greeted.

"Uh, yeah," Joker blurted. "Likewise."

"EDI will also be the SR2's ship intelligence," Shepard said. "I trust you will get along with her as well as you did Artemis?"

The lieutenant's expression tightened. "Yes, ma'am. You can count on it."

Shepard regarded Joker again for a brief moment. "Walk with us, Lieutenant."

"Aye ma'am," Joker immediately responded, despite the weariness such a trek would undoubtedly cause him.

If Miranda was at all perturbed by Shepard's attitude toward her former and likely future crewmember, the black-haired woman did not show it. Instead she remained at Shepard's side, continuing their conversation as if nothing was amiss.

"Let's skip the nonessentials," Shepard said as they entered the ship interior, where the guts were spilling out of the walls as components awaited installation. "The Collectors were able to neutralize the _Normandy's_ greatest advantage, her stealth system. Do we have any idea how yet?"

"Yes," Miranda answered in the affirmative, much to Shepard's surprise. "After examination of, Sovereign's, wreckage, we were able to get a better understanding of the full range of a Reaper's sensor suite."

That momentary pause there, Miranda was clearly alluding to the Reaper derelict found in orbit of Mnemosyne, in the Thorne System. The location of the dead Reaper had been gifted to Shepard by the rachni queen she saved on Noveria, and Shepard had passed that information onto the emperor himself to let him make a decision on how to proceed. Shortly after the major had been dispatched on a discrete survey mission, with Miranda accompanying, ostensibly as a Cord-Hislop representative evaluating the performance of the _Normandy_ on behalf of one of the companies responsible for the frigate's construction. That mission had ultimately confirmed the derelict's existence, after which a research team had been further dispatched to very, very carefully study the ship and its technologies.

"What we've learned is that a Reaper's sensors are capable of picking up extremely minute gravitational fluctuations," Miranda continued, "fluctuations that the original Tantalus drive design created in the generation of its mass effect pocket. While it was known that the drive created these ripples, the assumption at the time that there did not exist any sensor sensitive enough to actually detect them, at least at anything close to useful range."

"So does this ship's drive eliminate that flaw?" Shepard asked. "Otherwise not sure what point there'd be to even having it installed."

"It would arguably still be effective against any non-Reaper force we might encounter," Miranda countered, "but the point is taken. And while significant effort has gone into reducing the eddies the drive produces, there are still scenarios that does produce a signature, albeit a drastically reduced one. Control of mass effect fields at the sort of granularity necessary to outright eliminate the eddy is, frankly, beyond the capability of any party beyond potentially the Reapers themselves."

"So long as we don't start running into stealth ships of theirs," Shepard said, only half-jokingly.

Miranda and Joker grimaced. If the Reapers really ever did find reason to build such ships, they probably would be able to pull it off such that no one else would ever see them coming.

"Alright, so we might be able to sneak up on the Collectors," Shepard concluded. "What about actually fighting them? Or at least surviving a fight with them? The SR2 might be a bit bigger than the _Normandy_, but it still doesn't have the mass to mount armor thick enough to stand up to a particle beam like that."

"Which is why the hull has been reinforced with Silaris armor instead of the traditional ablative variant," Miranda said.

That actually caused Shepard's chair to come to a halt as the major almost gaped at the other woman.

"Silaris armor? That diamond armor the asaris developed?" Shepard said, then snorted. "Cord-Hislop's margins must be even juicier than I thought if you could afford to throw that in."

"We afford only the very best," Miranda said, a hint of pride in her voice. "Silaris armor is possessed of much greater heat resistance, and so can better absorb the thermal shock inflicted by energy weapons. Based on our calculations, not even the particle beam used by the Collectors would be able to quickly penetrate the SR2's hull."

Shepard nodded slowly. "Alright, so we can take a hit. But we'd need a lot of firepower to take down something as big as what the Collectors are flying around in. What's the SR2's tactical loadout?"

"The standard complement of disruptor torpedoes, an axial main gun, and tactical nuclear warheads," Miranda said. "While the torpedoes are of a newer generation with increased yield, unfortunately the SR2 is simply too small to mount anything that would decisively tip the scales against a capital ship like the Collector dreadnaught."

"Well, you can't have everything I suppose," Shepard said, then glanced over her shoulder at Joker. "The torpedoes'll require us to get into knife-fight range with the Collectors. It'll be up to you to get us in and back out in one piece, Lieutenant."

Joker gave a firm nod. "I won't let you down, Major."

Shepard returned the motion. "See that you don't. Now, I have a few other things to discuss with Ms. Lawson here. I'm sure you have your own duties to attend to, Lieutenant."

"Of course ma'am," Joker said, taking the hint. Clicking his heels together, he took his leave of the two women.

Once Joker was out of sight and sound, Miranda regarded Shepard.

"It may not be my place, Major, but were you perhaps unduly harsh with Lieutenant Moreau?"

"You're right, it's not your place," Shepard said, not even looking over at Miranda. "Joker wants to be forgiven for what he sees as his failure in the Amada System. He won't believe me if I say there's nothing to forgive, however. That's something he needs to realize and accept himself."

Miranda's lips twitched, but she refrained from further comment on the matter. It was not like there was anything else for her to say anyway.

"I presume in addition to the SR2's crew you are also drawing up candidates for the ground team," Shepard continued as if nothing was awry.

"Yes," Miranda responded without missing a beat. "Some of the required expertise is taking much longer to locate viable candidates for however, and we're having to cast the net beyond just imperial citizens."

To that Shepard actually shrugged. "I've worked with aliens before. So long as they're not out and out psychopaths, I can do so again."

Miranda raised an eyebrow. "And if they were, Major?"

"I'd work with them just long enough to get the job done," Shepard answered in a completely level tone, her gaze meeting Miranda's, "and then shoot 'em myself."

* * *

While Shepard appeared to be the epitome of serene composure as she sat waiting in the lounge, the major actually felt an undeniable unease in the pit of her stomach. Very few people could induce this sort of reaction in her. Her own mother certainly could not, and not even the Emperor Charles could. Ellen Ryder, the woman that more or less adopted Shepard as one of her own after the schism Shepard suffered with her own mother, could. The only other person capable of throwing Shepard off like this was Fleet Admiral Marianne Condé.

It was certainly not because of Admiral Condé's naval rank, Shepard through her duties as Cadre had occasion to interact with flag officers of such lofty rank on far greater occasion than others of her grade. It was also not because of Marianne's stature as Empress-Consort and mother to Crown Princess Kathryn, whom Shepard considered like another little sister and whose mother considered Shepard to be a good role model for her daughter. No, if there was one thing about Admiral Condé that genuinely set Shepard on edge, it would have to be her position as director of the Office of Naval Intelligence. As more than one unfortunate soul learned, one did _not_ fuck with ONI. There were much easier and less painful ways to commit suicide, both career wise and literally, than to irritate, or even god forbid, anger the director of ONI.

"The admiral is ready to see you now, Major Shepard," the secretary seated in the waiting room announced.

"Thank you," Shepard rose and proceeded through the doors, her movements still slightly stiff.

While she was no longer confined to a wheelchair, the major was still more or less relearning how to move her body and remained far from her previous peak poise, never mind the enhanced capabilities promised after undergoing all that surgery. Even if the doctors claimed Shepard was recovering far more quickly than could be expected, for the major until she was out in the field fighting again it was still too slow. Those rumblings however faded away as Shepard came to attention before the desk nestled within the cozy office.

"Major Evangeline Shepard, reporting as ordered, ma'am."

The raven-haired woman regarded Shepard with an almost motherly smile. "It's good to see you again, Major."

"You as well, ma'am."

Technically Shepard should have been referring to Marianne with the honorific of Majesty, as befitted the Empress-Consort's standing. There was also Her Grace as an option, seeing as Marianne was a duchess in her own right even setting aside her marriage into the imperial family. But here, inside of the admiralty's main terrestrial office campus on Earth, Marianne preferred to emphasize her naval position. Whether that was more or less intimidating than her noble rank was a subject of some debate.

"Have a seat," Marianne invited. "We'll be here for a while after all."

"Thank you, ma'am."

Marianne leaned back into her own chair, letting it sway aside slightly. "I'm sure my dear husband has already gone to some lengths emphasizing the, nuances of the expedition you are about to embark on. As such, I will get straight to the point. All of the personnel participating, including yourself, Major Shepard, will be having an ONI tag attached to your service jackets. This tag will indicate that you and the others have shown willingness to perform acts beyond the official reprove of the imperial armed forces. I trust you understand what this means."

Shepard gave a firm nod. The wording might have seemed a bit counterintuitive, but only to those not familiar with the trappings of imperial law. To be beyond official reprove meant one had crossed the bounds of what imperial law stipulated as permissible in such a way that its normal sanctions would not suffice for whatever act was committed. This also meant that the normal judicial process for accessing and determining guilt and punishment were similarly inadequate to deal with the magnitude of the act, so the procedures employed were extrajudicial. Simply put, anyone guilty of such extreme acts were put onto the imperial kill list by the emperor's direct authority, a kill list that only members of his Cadre could execute. There was a very fine line that needed to be walked with this approach, a danger that a sovereign might be tempted towards dictatorial tendencies with such power. As such the question of reprove remained to this day a highly contentious issue amongst the imperial polity.

"At present it is hard to say how this will influence the future prospects of your crew," Marianne continued. "About all I can say is that it will have at least _some_ influence. Anytime one of them might request a transfer or the like, this tag will be seen by the commanding officer of their desired station. That will have consequences, as I am sure you are aware."

Again Shepard nodded. There would certainly be some commanders that would refuse to accept someone with that kind of mark in their jacket. Then again there might be others that thought such willingness was a good thing. It was hard to tell which possibility was worse. But this too was a consequence of their own decisions, and Shepard would not shrink away from it.

"I understand, ma'am."

Marianne hardly looked pleased with the acceptance, but the admiral gave a nod of her own. She had spoken her piece, it was now time to get down to the brass tacks.

"You are undoubtedly familiar with those of the _Normandy's_ crew that agreed to enlist upon this new expedition," Marianne said, "so I will leave it to your discretion to review their profiles. The personnel that we will be discussing today are those that Cord-Hislop recruited to the remaining vacancies."

The admiral tilted her head, all the indication that she was calling up records to share with the major. For Shepard's part, her eyes focused as images and texts popped up on her AR HUD.

"First up would be Rupert Gardner."

The balding, middle aged man did not leave much of an impression from his image, but presumably Cerberus had selected him for some reason.

"Mr. Gardner here is probably the most generic of the recruits," Marianne declared.

Or maybe they just needed someone to fill a post.

"He's been listed as the ship's cook, along with general maintenance. Gardner's something of a classic human supremacy sympathizer. Prior to his recruitment by Cord-Hislop, he worked eezo mining operations along the frontier colonies. Unfortunately, his family was killed in a slaver raid, and he's harbored a general distrust of aliens ever since."

That same story could be told countless times over. Little wonder Cerberus found so many eager recruits for its ranks. How many would have remained as enthusiastic about joining had they realized the organization could be as vicious and callous as the very aliens they claimed to protect humanity against, was debatable. In Gardner's case however, the relative mundanity of his background meant he was either completely inconsequential, or the perfect mole. Probably more the former than the latter, but that would need to be a judgment Shepard herself would make. Marianne was simply providing the major with what information she could to help Shepard along.

Surprisingly, few of the other recruits could be said to share Gardner's xenophobic leanings. That might not have been significant, but it was yet another datapoint. Still, the way the admiral was ordering her introductions, she was obviously starting with those she had the least concern about and moving towards those whom were more suspect.

"Gabriella Daniels and Kenneth Donnelly were engineers aboard the HMS _Perugia_, a cruiser that participated in the Battle of the Citadel," Marianne introduced. "They were not first wave, the _Perugia_ came through after the relay was unlocked. Nonetheless, they were firsthand witnesses to the destruction the geth, and Sovereign was capable of wreaking. That seems to have been Chief Donnelly's primary motive in enlisting for this expedition." The admiral tilted her head again. "And he's apparently also a big fan of yours."

That elicited a snort from the major. Arguably those numbers had grown rather substantially since the hunt for Saren, but Shepard was not in this for posterity. She was here to get the job done, whatever it took.

"Chief Daniels appears to have tagged along with Donnelly, either out of friendship or a sense of responsibility to look out for him. Either way, she appears to be the more levelheaded one, and more cognizant of the potential repercussions of their enlistment."

And yet Gabriella had enlisted anyways. Either she really was close to Kenneth, or she had a deeper objective.

"Lieutenant Jacob Taylor you've already met," Marianne proceeded to the next recruit, "albeit briefly, during the Eden Prime operation."

The dark-skinned man in the image was certainly recognized by the major. She had made use of his unit to stall the geth forces while her own squad tried to reach the prothean beacon. Shepard had not encountered him again in the aftermath of the battle, seeing as she was quickly dispatched on a mission to ultimately save the galaxy. A mission that she was arguably still on.

"After Eden Prime, Lieutenant Taylor requested to be discharged, which the Corps agreed to on account of his status as a near sole survivor of his company. Cord-Hislop recruited him not long after as a security contractor, and he's been engaged in that work ever since."

That saw Shepard raise an eyebrow. If Jacob really had been picked up by Cerberus that quickly, then his entire discharge, on what sounded to be mental fitness grounds, was a load of bull arranged by the organization. That would indicate a greater readiness on the former lieutenant's part to play to Cerberus' tune than Shepard was liking.

"Does Lieutenant Taylor feel disaffected with the Empire, ma'am?" Shepard asked.

"Lieutenant Taylor exhibits a certain dissatisfaction with the layers of decision making that is part of the chain of command," Marianne answered. "That dissatisfaction is rooted primarily in wanting to take more effective and quicker action in response to problems and threats he feels are out there. Working through the formal chain of command therefore feels restrictive, in a way that the lieutenant feels can cost lives due to the slowness that some decisions are made. In this way the lieutenant matches exactly the sort of personnel that his present employer finds easiest to entice into joining its ranks. Competent, certain of their own judgment, and firmly believing that they are trying to do the right thing."

Seeing as Hell was well populated by those that believed in the righteousness of their cause, Shepard was far from reassured. She would need to keep a watchful eye on Jacob.

"More details of his missions are part of the detailed brief you'll be getting," the admiral summed up. "Now, this next recruit is an interesting one."

Shepard was now greeted by the image of a smiling ginger with bright green eyes.

"Kelly Chambers, officially attached to the SR2 as her yeoman, responsible for administrative tasks, ship logistics, general crew welfare, and almost certainly serving as the gentle face of Cerberus that is supposed to entice you to sympathize with the organization."

That Marianne had completely forgone the fiction of this being a Cord-Hislop expedition and namedrop the real backers showed just how serious she was about one Kelly Chambers.

"So you're saying she's genuine, ma'am?" Shepard asked as she more closely examined the projected image of the smiling redhead.

"Completely and utterly," Marianne responded. "Ms. Chambers is far from stupid, but she is possessed of a certain optimism that allows her to always hope for the good in others. While she is certainly aware of Cerberus' past transgressions, it is apparently her belief that the organization treats those transgressions as just that, genuine lapses that are to be avoided instead of simply screwups that the organization failed to cover up."

Shepard just sort of stared at Marianne. Stupid Kelly may not be, but if that was not naivety, it was certainly pushing hard on the boundaries. Or perhaps not, Cerberus may have intentionally cultured the woman to be this way by being selective about what information it revealed to her, as well as how that information was presented. One did not need to outright lie to obfuscate the truth, after all.

"Is Ms. Chambers supposed to be a plant to try to seduce me or something, ma'am?" Shepard asked.

"Nothing so crass," Marianne said. "Her selection may simply have been because she was genuinely the least objectionable of the administrative aides that Cord-Hislop could assign to the project. On the other hand, if Ms. Chambers were to somehow ingratiate herself to you in the natural course of things, I don't think her superiors would object."

"I'll keep that in mind, ma'am," Shepard said simply.

"See that you do," Marianne said. "Now, that brings us to the final candidate selected as part of your command, the one slotted to serve as your executive. You are already acquainted with Miranda Lawson, I believe."

Shepard's expression remained flatly neutral. "In passing, ma'am."

"Well, it may interest you to know that she is the genetic offspring of one Henry Lawson, head of Lawson Biomedical."

The major blinked once. "I was not aware Mr. Lawson had any children."

"Publicly, he does not," Marianne said. "And it would be somewhat inaccurate to call Miranda his daughter. Genetically, she is a clone of Lawson, produced by the doubling of his X chromosome."

Shepard's expression turned into something very much not surprise.

"I presume there is a reason Lawson has not been arrested, ma'am?" Shepard asked.

"The cloning itself took place outside of terran space, so technically Lawson did not violate any imperial law," Marianne said. "The jurisdiction that it did take place under also does not seek his extradition for any violation of their laws. The matter is further complicated by the fact that we do not have direct evidence that Lawson was, abusive, of his clone, since so long as the clone is afforded all the rights and privileges of any other person, he has not committed any violation of imperial law after registering the clone as his ward, no matter how ethically dubious his original deeds were."

And without that evidence, Lawson's transgressions were not quite serious enough to be beyond reprove. Not quite.

"At the same time, we're pretty certain that there was some sort of rupture between Lawson and Miranda," Marianne continued. "Lawson used to be a major backer of Cerberus, but after Miranda appeared as one of Cerberus' operatives, Lawson withdrew his support. We suspect that Cerberus is providing Miranda protection from her father, in exchange for her services. Exactly why that protection is necessary, well, having Miranda work directly under your command might just provide the opportunity to obtain her confidence on the matter, and possibly even convince her that certain imperial agencies might be better equipped to provide that protection than her current employers."

The major now regarded the admiral with something akin to amazement. Marianne gave a low chuckle.

"Two can play at the coopting game," she said.

Shepard nodded admiringly. "I'll see what I can do, ma'am."

Marianne returned the gesture, then the smile disappeared from the older woman's face.

"Be careful, Jane. Cerberus is not to be underestimated, whatever its appearance of cooperation may suggest. Even if their agenda isn't clearly visible, it does exist."

"I understand," Shepard responded, "Your Majesty."

* * *

With EDI's installation aboard the SR2, Shepard was now spending more time out at Ganymede than Earth these days as she continued acclimating with her AI partner and her future command. Still, sometimes errands arose that required her to make the short hop back, as was the case now as Shepard entered the imperial palace once more. The summons had the seal of the imperial family, indicating it pertained to her position as Cadre instead of merely as an officer in the imperial armed forces. To Shepard's only mild surprise, Alec was there to greet her upon the major's arrival.

"Colonel," Shepard addressed formally. "I was not aware you were in Geneva."

"I had some matters to discuss with His Majesty regarding my current assignment, and the timing worked out to coincide with your visit," Alec said simply.

"The Andromeda Initiative," Shepard name dropped said assignment. "I take it then that it's become something more serious than a mere pipe dream?"

"Some recent developments that have not yet been released to the public has resulted in it becoming so," Alec said as the two walked down the hall. "One of the sweeps the navy is doing along the fringes of the Perseus Veil encountered what we believe to be a geth assemblage of three mass relays, tied together to create a very long range FTL telescope capable of scanning beyond the galactic rim."

"Really," Shepard said, taken slightly aback by the news.

Alec nodded. "We're not entirely sure what the geth were looking for, though the possibility certainly exists that they were looking for Reapers."

"And did they find them?" the major asked.

A shake of the head. "Unfortunately the recovered data did not show any signs of them. What it did show however were some near-contemporary surveys of Andromeda, including a region called the Heleus Cluster. If the data is accurate, there are multiple golden worlds in Heleus that would be viable for colonization."

Shepard pursed her lips thoughtfully. "Near-contemporary by how much, sir?"

"50 years, give or take."

That caused the major to inhale sharply. If the data was genuine and accurate, that might mean the Initiative was actually on a course to being viable instead of just some eccentric billionaire's pipedream. Then Shepard's eyes narrowed.

"Is Andromeda being considered as some sort of fallback as well, sir?"

"It may seem like something of a long shot," Alec more or less confirmed, "but considering the nature of what we're facing, extreme solutions may be the only viable solutions."

"I can see that, sir," Shepard agreed. "Still, even if viable colonization targets have been discovered, there are still the logistical and technical challenges of actually getting to another galaxy."

"On that front, ironically the Reapers themselves may have provided one of the key components," Alec said. "According to the lab boys, Sovereign's drive core was capable of recycling the static buildup that happens aboard ships and convert it into usable electricity. Without the need to find large celestial bodies to act as discharge points, a ship driven by a similar drive could travel much further distances."

"That _is_ promising," Shepard said. "I can see why His Majesty would want to monitor the Initiative's progress more closely by having you participate, sir." The major tilted her head. "What about Scott and Sara?"

Alec's expression actually tightened at that. "I've broached the subject of them joining the Initiative as well, and while Scott has shown a mild interest, Sara is more focused on her current career in the corps."

"I'll send a letter to both," Shepard said, "encourage them to reconsider more strongly."

The gratitude was plain enough as Alec met Shepard's gaze, just as it was the urge the colonel felt to extend a similar request to Shepard herself. It was however equally obvious that Shepard would not be taking her own advice on the matter, and so Alec refrained from crossing that particular precipice. Not that he had any further opportunity to try as the two emerged in the garden and a feminine figure in the uniform of a navy ensign figuratively and literally pounced on Shepard.

"Jane!"

The major's arms were open and waiting, seeing as she had seen the starting motion well in advance. With a chuckle Shepard returned the embrace.

"It's good to see you too, Your Highness."

Crown Princess Kathryn was in addition to the heir presumptive of the Terran Empire, she was also the a newly minted ensign within said Empire's naval arm. Indeed her father, the Emperor Charles, had actually risen to the rank of command himself before he was obliged to move to the reserve to more heavily engage in his imperial duties. Kathryn, having inherited her parents' drive, seemed determined to at least make it that far before she too was forced to get on with the business of being a princess.

Despite Kathryn's usually serious demeanor, the young woman gave no indication of letting Shepard go anytime soon. Not that the major herself minded, Kathryn was something of a cherished little sister to many Cadre officers, or even a surrogate daughter for the older ones like Alec. If she wanted to get a bit clingy from time to time, who were they to deny the girl, court proprieties be damned. Besides, it had indeed been a while since Shepard last saw the young woman.

When the two women finally let each other go, Kathryn's blue eyes slightly shimmered as they met Shepard's. The younger woman was not exactly holding back tears, but there was a definite sadness to her complexion.

"I'm sorry," Kathryn said simply.

The ripple of emotion that Shepard felt was no echo or illusion, it was what Kathryn was genuinely feeling. Like her mother and father, and like Shepard and Alec, Kathryn was also a synchronizer, and so was capable of actually pulsing her emotional state if she wanted. This ability actually gave synchronizers in general a sort of secondary empathy for their fellows, something that various psychiatrists and doctors hypothesized actually helped keep synchronizers on average more grounded and less selfish. As with all things relating to human psychology actually putting that hypothesis was devilishly complicated, but there was no denying that synchronizers did seem more attuned to the moods of others, for better or worse.

"It's alright," Shepard answered with equal succinctness, and equal meaning.

Kathryn took a deep breath, composing herself, and in a moment what stood before Shepard and Alec was not the doleful princess, but an imperial officer.

"I understand, Major, that you have come on some personal business with my family this day," Kathryn said formally.

Shepard nodded. "Yes, Your Highness."

Kathryn returned the motion. "I apologize then, Major, for the absence of my father. His Majesty is presently away attending to pressing matters of state."

That, was not exactly a lie, Shepard immediately picked up. The Emperor Charles was indeed away dealing with something else, but the timing of his absence was also very deliberate.

"That is a shame, Your Highness," Shepard said. "Nonetheless, in his absence, I hope you would be willing to hear my appeal?"

"I would," Kathryn said, "but before we get to that, there is one additional matter to attend to." The princess stepped back. "Attention to arms!"

Even with only Alec and herself standing before the princess, Shepard reflexively came to attention. The colonel did likewise, but from seemingly nowhere also pulled out a brown colored folder and presented it to Kathryn. The princes accepted it, opened it, and began reading.

"From Charles the Twelfth, by the Grace of God, Emperor of the Terran Empire, and of His other Realms and Territories, Defender of the Faith, Lord Marshal, Lord High Admiral. To our Trusty and Beloved Shepard, Evangeline. Greetings."

A very long and wordy introduction, but it did nicely to emphasize the relative authority between Shepard and her sovereign liege, and the dignity the major was herself accorded.

"We, reposing especial Trust and Confidence in your Loyalty, Courage, and good Conduct, do by these Presents Constitute and Appoint you to be an officer in the Cadre of Our Own Household Cavalry from the 7th day of March, 2185. You are therefore carefully and diligently to discharge your Duty as such in the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel or in such other Rank as We may from time to time hereafter be pleased to promote you to, and you are in such manner on such occasions as may be prescribed by Us to exercise and well discipline in their duties such officers, men ad women as may be placed under your orders from time to time and use your best endeavors to keep them in good order and discipline. And We do hereby Command them to Obey you as their superior Officer and you to observe and follow such Orders and Directions as from time to time you shall receive from Us, or any superior Officer, according to the Rules and Disciplines of War, in pursuance of the Trust hereby reposed in you."

Shepard took a deep breath, though Kathryn was not yet done with the notice.

"Given at Our Court, at Geneva the 7th day of March in the 32nd Year of Our Reign. By His Majesty's Command. Countersigned by Lieutenant-General Alexander Kosygin and Fleet Admiral Kassandra Alexander."

Kathryn closed the folder and Alec proceeded to adjust the insignia upon Shepard's uniform to match her new rank. The princess issued a crisp salute.

"Congratulations, Lieutenant-Colonel Shepard."

"My thanks, Your Highness."

Alec then stepped before Shepard and saluted. "Congratulations, Colonel."

Shepard gave a playful smile. "Thank you, Colonel."

"Now," Kathryn said, after the pleasantries were concluded. "I believe you had something to discuss yourself, Colonel?"

The smile disappeared as Shepard met Kathryn's gaze. "Yes, Your Highness. I am here today to request an indefinite leave of absence from my duties as Cadre."

That was it. No explanation for why Shepard wanted the leave, what she might be doing during that leave, nothing. After all, what need to provide further explanation when all present already knew the reasons. Even so, Kathryn's expression wavered for a brief moment before she responded.

"On my authority, your request is granted, Colonel." Kathryn took a deep breath. "And I look forward to when your leave ends and you are returned to Our service."

End of Chapter 3

One more chapter of setup to go. Some of the scenes ended up going on for longer than I originally intended, so I broke the material up into two chapters. Quite a bit of arc welding as well going on in the setup chapters.

We have a very, very sneaky empress here. She didn't become head of ONI for nothing.

So, yeah. There's something about Shepard that means she doesn't actually feel 'sad' like a lot of other people. For her, things that would make other people 'sad' actually make her angry. In some ways this makes her a fantastically lethal warrior, since she's not likely to get shocked into emotional paralysis or anything. In other ways, it could risk making her do monstrous things if her anger is unchecked.

I'm still toying around with what Shepard's sexual orientation actually is. In some respects, she's not actually indicating a preference for women by the way she keeps wording her relationship with her AI partners, it's just that all synchronizers to a certain extent consider such partnerships very intimate. After all, the AI partner pretty much sees and feels everything the human partner does. And the vocabulary available to describe such a degree of intimacy tends to veer towards the romantic, even if there is not an actual romance at play. The other reason Shepard does it is just to troll non-synchronizers.

That all being said, Shepard being sterile does mean she approaches the concept of a romantic relationship from a different angle. A lot of people that get together do have some inclinations to eventually have kids, usually with the two parents doing the deed to make the kid. Shepard knows she cannot provide that to any prospective partner, and yes adoption is a thing, but her sterility is still not something that can be just waved away. So anyone that she does end up with, has to be someone that accepts that part of Shepard as well, which is not by any means a trivial ask.

So I've figured out exactly what it is the Reapers are doing, why they perform the periodic harvests, for my version of ME. I personally think it's a much grander design than what we got in canon, and on the scale of which I think is befitting of the Reapers' mystique, so make of that what you will. Even wrote up a short draft for a future scene where it's explained what they're doing. The good news to this is I can sprinkle more bits of foreshadowing and allow for a more coherent reveal as time goes on. The bad news is considering that scene is supposed to take place mid to late-way in the third story of the trilogy, you all have something like 60-80 or so chapters to go before you learn what my Reapers are up to. Maybe by then I'll get a tvtropes recommendation for this trilogy.

Note that I had already worked out the method by which the Grand Alliance will win the war against the Reapers. And anyone that thinks 'Crucible' is the only answer is seriously underestimating my creativity.

I've been writing long enough that I have a few longtime readers that follow me from story to story as I work on them. Some are pretty quick to jump on the bandwagon when I start a new work. Others, all I can ask is, what took you so long? :P

So I actually do have some more images commissioned for this trilogy. One that was recently finished was of Hannah Shepard, Jane and John's mother. If all of you don't mind some minor spoilers, you can reconstruct the following link to check it and the short bio I've written for my version of Hannah out.

Link: deviantart dot com slash z98 slash art slash Fleet-Admiral-Hannah-Shepard-823070386


	5. Chapter 4

_I wanted to join the corps long before I even got my implants. Both my parents were in the navy, so some were a bit surprised when I wanted to be a ground pounder instead of joining the fleet. Me, I'd spent so much of my childhood aboard ships and stations that I was kind of getting sick of all the sterile lights and gray corridors. When I first set foot on solid ground, it felt so natural. The way that my weight was balanced, the way the sunlight warmed my face, it felt like paradise. That's when I knew I wanted to do something that'd let me walk on solid ground like that as much as I could. I wasn't going to join the army of course, I have _some_ standards. So the corps was the natural choice. Course, John had a mild panic attack with all that fresh air and open space. Looking back, I thought he was a big chicken and teased him mercilessly about it. Now? Kinda wish we could go back to those days when things seemed so much simpler. When we could dream about the future without worrying about consequences. When he was still alive._

_-Evangeline Shepard, Mandatory Counseling Log 004_

Chapter 4

Nec metu

The Council Chamber aboard the Citadel was a multi-tiered room, with stairs leading up to each level. The trees and plants that decorated the place helped provide the impression of a large open space. While that appearance might impress upon any would be supplicants of the Council's own grandeur, there was also a certain utilitarian reasoning to the design. In the off-chance that a hostile force was actually able to fight their way to the Council Chambers, the room itself was set up to allow its defenders an open kill box with which to rain fire upon the attackers. To storm the chamber successfully required prodigious usage of heavy weapons as well as a significant numerical edge, both of which the geth invaders had possessed in ample measure. The effort had still bled them dry, one reason why Saren had been by his lonesome by the time Shepard and her squad caught up with him. Now, as the colonel set foot within these chambers once more, so was she.

The skeletal frame at the top of the stairs made a flying leap the moment Shepard was through the door. The colonel responded by unloading a full clip at the monstrosity, but even so its shields remained visibly intact. The massive surge of electricity that Shepard unleashed did the trick however, the crackling sound a combination of the overload and the kinetic barrier shattering. Even so, the colonel did not have the time or space to take advantage of her opponent's vulnerability as the husk barreled right through the space she occupied mere moments before.

Shepard barely registered the hiss that sounded as she popped her thermal clip, but in the time she took to pop in a new one a blue sheen washed over the husk, marking the regeneration of its shield. That happened rather more quickly than she recalled from the actual fight against Saren, but she wouldn't put it past the simulation's developers to amp up the difficulty to push her harder. The immediate consequence of this much faster shield regeneration however meant her assault rifle was effectively useless for this fight. She needed a weapon that would let her bring down the husk's shield and still allow her to continue dealing damage once the shield was down. Fortunately the colonel had just the thing. In one smooth motion, the rifle was folded onto her back and out came her trusty Carnifex pistol and huntress sword.

The husk was now attempting to skewer Shepard with its sharp talons, but the colonel was keeping one step out of reach. The shots that slammed into the creature's shields were hitting hard enough to even throw off its movements. Not enough to slow it down much, but certainly enough to divert its trajectory every time it tried to charge Shepard head-on. As the husk leapt aside to try to flank Shepard, the colonel reached out to do more than just screw with its momentum. The biotic field warped the flow of gravity just enough to send the husk flailing, and the surge of electricity that followed detonated the field of energy with catastrophic effect. Not only was the husk's shield collapsed again, it also came crashing down onto the ground. This time it was Shepard's turn to make a leaping charge, sword at the ready to impale the thing.

Again however the husk proved to be no easy prey, rolling aside to just barely avoid being skewered. It also immediately went on the counterattack, swiping at Shepard the moment she landed. The colonel's shields were able to absorb the blow, but they dropped immediately into the red from the effort. The time they bought however let Shepard empty the rest of her pistol's clip into the husk, each shot pummeling its armor. With every dent they added, she was one step closer to putting the husk down for good.

A wave of gravitic energy suddenly threw Shepard back but the colonel landed deftly on her feet, a new clip slapped into her pistol. She resumed firing immediately, trying to keep the husk from getting any opportunity to regenerate its shield. From the flickers of blue light that kept fizzling out, it was working, for now. It just needed to keep working long enough for her to-Shepard disappeared, and when she reappeared the colonel was standing behind the husk instead of in front of it, her sword gleaming blue. The husk began to turn around, and then one of its arms fell off.

"Tch."

The colonel had been aiming for a clean cut through the spine, but she was still working out how to perform this phasic strike with the huntress sword. Still, it was good to know that the blade could indeed cut through the reinforced armoring of the husk. She just needed to work on her aim a bit.

The husk actually took a moment to examine its severed limb, as if recalculating what its tactical options were now that it was so damaged. That moment passed quickly as both Shepard and the husk leapt forth to attack each other once more. Shepard's pistol barked with every shot, while the husk simply charged through the barrage to close the distance. It was arguably not the best of ideas to draw into melee range of Shepard after she had demonstrated the sharpness of her blade, but it was equally unwise to underestimate the construct and the intelligence driving it. As Shepard prepared to perform another phasic strike, she suddenly felt the tug of gravity holding her back. The husk had cast a small singularity, one strong enough to interfere with Shepard's own biotics but not much of an impediment to regular motion.

The colonel grunted, and instead of continuing her charge skipped backward. The husk of course showed no such restraint and lunged at Shepard, only to run into her parting gift as the grenade exploded in its face. The blast might have buckled some of its armor and blunted its momentum, but the husk was a damn though monster and landed without much fuss. When it tried to charge again however, the husk suddenly found its body weighed down by a very intense gravitic field. As biotic energy flooded out its form as it tried to nullify Shepard's power, the colonel held up her hand, and unleashed a torrent of electricity. The surge rippled all about the husk, colliding with the gravitic energy in a catastrophic mixture. The detonation this time did more than buckle armor, it wracked it enough to tear large chunks off the husk's form.

A second blast of biotic energy hit the husk, slamming it into the ground. Having expended its own reserves, and then getting the resultant energy turned back against it, the husk could only scream in frustration as its limbs tried to resist the gravitic pull the old-fashioned way. It was nowhere to getting back up when Shepard came flying down. Her own weight was amplified by not just the armor she wore and the distance of the drop, but also by the colonel increasing her relative mass via her biotics. That much weight landing on the husk shattered not only its body, but saw Shepard slam right through the floor. The severed head was sent flying, denting the wall where it struck before bouncing to a final stop along the edges of the smoldering hole Shepard stood at the epicenter of. A few other stray scraps could be seen strewn about. The rest of the husk had been crushed flat by Shepard's landing, and would likely take some effort to separate from the shattered flooring.

"Simulation complete," a voice sounded. "Recovery team to the simulation chamber."

As host to one of the navy's largest R&D facilities, Ganymede Station had dedicated space in which replicas of various locales could be set up to perform simulations and tests. Recreating the Council Chamber had actually not been that terribly difficult, the Empire like any competent government having done some degree of contingency planning on the off-chance it ever found itself engaged in open conflict with the Council races to the point of needing to storm the Citadel. Indeed parts of those same plans were what imperial forces had drawn upon when they ended up participating in not the invasion of the Citadel, but its liberation from occupying geth forces. Back then, there had been a lot of fires too.

Techs hurried into the chamber, spraying fire suppressant to contain the blaze. Others were quick to Shepard's side, in case the colonel needed any assistance. The calm manner of Shepard's gaunt seemed to indicate such concern was unnecessary, at least this time.

"Nicely done, Colonel," Miranda said over the radio. "I'd say that serves as a rather conclusive final test of your new implants."

"Not until we've finished the follow-up examination," Chakwas disagreed. "This is the first time Colonel Shepard has exercised the implants to such a degree, and we need to see how her physiology is coping with the strain."

"Feels alright so far, doc," Shepard responded.

"And if this involved your older implants, I would be more willing to take your word for it," Chakwas said. "As it is, you are still acclimating to your new implants, still learning their limits. Until we have more data to validate the actual boundaries that you can safely operate within, we need to be careful."

"Fair enough, doc," Shepard said. "Let me get out of this monkey suit before you start poking at me, though."

A short while later, which included a nice hot shower in the mix, Shepard was laid back on the examination bed staring blankly ahead.

"Are we done yet?"

"Oh don't you even start with that," Chakwas chided. "EDI, current noise threshold?"

"12.3%, Doctor. The colonel's adrenaline levels are still slightly elevated. Should I attempt to manually adjust them down?"

"Not yet, give it another hour or so for them settle on their own," Chakwas responded. "Shepard's always run slightly hotter than the baseline average."

"Understood."

Arguably EDI already knew this, but the AI was asking such questions as much for Chakwas' medical judgment as she was gathering additional data points to grow her own decision matrix.

"Looks like you exerted yourself hard enough to tap into your nutrient supplements," Chakwas continued. "That's a lot of calories you burned there."

"Biotics tend to do that," Shepard said.

"This was more than just biotics," Chakwas said as she continued reviewing the data. "Lactate levels were significantly elevated once you engaged the husk."

Shepard tilted her head. "Really? The secondary glucose conversion nodes weren't able to pick up the slack?"

The production of excess lactate was generally a product of the human body not being able to keep up with intense physical exertion, like when one was sprinting. Put another way, Shepard had been pushing herself hard enough that she had effectively been sprinting for the several minutes the simulated battle took. Such sustained exertion was nigh impossible for baseline humans and it was only thanks to the colonel's numerous augmentations that she could keep going for as long as she did. Even then however, as Chakwas' diagnosis and Shepard's own remark indicated, those implants had come up somewhat short in keeping the colonel's body fully fueled. That was perhaps inevitable, there were hard physical limits after all to how much glucose and oxygen could be supplied to her muscles in any given span of time by her bloodstream. Even the pseudo-liver implants that helped recycle the waste products produced by her muscles needed said products to reach them first before they could work their magic.

"For now make sure you have a large meal before retiring for the day," Chakwas finally wrapped up the examination. "I'll want to take another look at your blood works tomorrow to make sure your sugar levels haven't crashed."

"I'm pretty sure you've set up an automated alert," Shepard said as she hopped off the bed, "if something like that was happening."

Chakwas chucked, but neither confirmed nor denied that point. "Do get some proper rest, Colonel. I expect we'll be quite busy for the foreseeable future."

* * *

"Colonel Shepard, it's an honor to meet you," a cheerful redhead greeted Shepard.

"Yeoman Chambers," Shepard greeted a bit more formally, extending a hand.

"Oh, just Kelly is fine, umm, if that's alright with you, Colonel," Kelly said, accepting the handshake with both her own.

Shepard kept her expression politely neutral. "Is the SR2 your first shipboard assignment?"

"I've worked as a purser on a few other prototype designs Cord-Hislop conducted trials on," Kelly answered. "This'll arguably be my first assignment that has such an open-ended timeframe."

"I see," Shepard said. "In that case, I'd suggest we keep things professional for the time being. Since we don't know how long we'll be serving together, it's best we try to avoid anything that would complicate our working relationship."

"I understand, Colonel," Kelly said, doing an admirable job of hiding any disappoint she might be feeling.

"So, Ms. Yeoman, I hope all of the necessary paperwork is in order for the ship's commissioning?" Shepard said, leaning against the console.

The two were actually aboard the SR2, the majority of the interior fitting having been done and the ship now being run through final system checks and simulations before its commissioning. Arguably Shepard and Kelly should have met sooner, but this was still better than Shepard being introduced to her primary administrative aide only after they had left dock.

"They are, Colonel," Kelly assured Shepard. "We should have the approvals for the main systems filed by next week, with secondary and tertiary systems the week after. I've also received requisition orders from Dr. Chakwas and Chief Daniels for the medical supplies and engineering spares they feel will be necessary for the initial leg of our cruise. Sergeant Gardner is still working on his requisition for food provisions and miscellaneous items, but he should be getting that to me by tomorrow as well."

Shepard nodded. Kelly was at least proving to be competent at her job, whatever her secondary objectives were.

"What about once we're underway?" Shepard asked. "We won't officially have access to the navy's network of support stations. How will further field requisitions and upkeep be handled?"

"An expense account has been set up to pay for topping up supplies as the need arises," Kelly said. "It has a pretty generous limit too, so while I wouldn't recommend us splurging, we shouldn't run into any problems acquiring anything we find ourselves missing, within reason of course. As for any routine maintenance, or god forbid repairs, that we might end up needing, Cord-Hislop actually runs quite a few of the repair depots as a contractor for the navy, and part of its contract grants the company the right to perform work on any of its own ships that might need it at such depots. The company also maintains its own network of trusted depots if we need to do work on especially sensitive systems like the stealth system, but otherwise we shouldn't have any problems seeing to the general upkeep of the ship."

"Does this network of depots extend beyond imperial space?" Shepard asked.

An entirely legitimate question seeing as Cord-Hislop was very much a terran company, and one in which the imperial government held a substantial stake in. In the highly likely situation where the SR2 needed to travel beyond imperial or even terran space in pursuit of the Collectors, they needed some assurance that support could still be forthcoming.

"Somewhat, though as you already suspect the extent of the Cord-Hislop network significantly diminishes outside of imperial space," Kelly confirmed. "There are certainly assets and resources that could be tapped if the need was severe enough, but the quality and reliability of those assets would be more suspect."

"About what I figured," Shepard shrugged. "We'll just have to be careful about which fights we pick then."

"That would be preferred, Colonel," Kelly said.

"So does our general supply situation also extend to munitions?" Shepard asked.

"To a certain extent, Colonel," Kelly answered. "Requisitioning conventional munitions for the SR2's guns and KEWs for fire support shouldn't be a problem, but if we need to replenish anything more exotic, like tactical nuclear warheads, well, that'll be trickier. If we actually do end up using the ones we're allocated now, we'd need to head to one of Cord-Hislop's secured depots to get more. Our clearance wouldn't let us requisition any from any of the naval depots."

"Fair enough," Shepard said.

Arguably Shepard would be even more worried if the navy really was willing to hand out nukes to what was officially a corporate account, even ignoring the veiled hand behind that account.

"Most things seem to be in order for our departure date, then," Shepard continued. "Except the current question mark over our ground support vehicle."

"Yes, and it's starting to look like it'll be faster for us to go pick up the Hammerhead than to wait for it to be shipped over to us, ma'am," Kelly said with an apologetic tone. "According to the latest reports, they're still working on calibrating the X-44's hoverjets. Even if they manage to hit their latest estimated timeline, it'd be too late for them to then freight the Hammerhead to us before our own scheduled departure from Ganymede."

Shepard gave an annoyed sigh. "I'm not sure I'm happy relying on such an un-proofed vehicle for ground deployments like that."

"I understand, Colonel," Kelly said, "but unfortunately the SR2's vehicle bay was designed with the assumption that it would house and deploy the Hammerhead, so it's not rated for the heavier Mako."

"I really need to have words with whoever laid down the SR2's basic specifications," Shepard said, then gave another sigh. "Alright, it is what it is. Do you expect the Hammerhead to actually be ready when we do go pick it up?"

Kelly grimaced slightly. "I wouldn't have it first on our itinerary at least, Colonel."

"Hrmm. Have your previous shakedown cruises also started this smoothly, Yeoman?"

The other woman cracked a wry smile. "If only, Colonel. I'd say the SR2's preparations have seen the fewest hiccups by far."

"Somehow, I find that depressingly easy to believe," Shepard said, cracking a slight smile of her own.

* * *

Though space was always something of a premium aboard space stations, Ganymede Station was large enough to host dedicated dining facilities that served freshly cooked food from raw ingredients instead of just reheating preprocessed nutrient concentrate. One of those restaurants was even highly regarded enough to routinely host dinner services for flag officers, which actually explained Shepard's presence within this particular establishment. The lieutenant-colonel herself was obviously not a flag officer, but the one whom invited her for dinner this particular evening was. And while Shepard was usually not one to turn down free food, there had been a certain degree of reluctance in her accepting this invitation.

"Well aren't you the early bird," Hannah Shepard greeted her daughter.

Shepard gave her mother a slight smile as she rose, but made no move to embrace her. "You offered a pretty big worm to hook me after all, Mom."

Similarly Hannah did not extend her arms to try to hug her daughter. The unspoken agreement between the two, that Shepard was the one that would initiate any such contact, remained in effect, even now.

"Have you had anything here before?" Hannah asked as the two sat down.

Shepard shook her head. "First time I've dropped in. I've never actually been stationed at Ganymede, never even transited through the place for that matter."

A glass of water was promptly placed in front of Hannah by a server. Shepard's half-full glass was also refilled in the process.

"The navy does tend to try to keep transit traffic to a minimum here," Hannah said. "I've only been here a few times myself."

"So what brought you to Ganymede this time, assuming you can tell me?" Shepard asked. "The official list has you as in-between commands."

"I could ask you the same thing," Hannah said. "Color me surprised that a beached officer is going in and out one of the navy's most secure stations."

Shepard snorted. "And you really think me being beached would slow me down any?"

"It certainly wouldn't stop you," Hannah said, glancing down at the menu. "Have you already picked something?"

"Yep."

Another indication of the relative quality of the restaurant, one needed to actually verbally provide their order to a server instead of just punching it into a terminal. Only after the server retreated once more did the conversation between the two women continued. As discreet as the restaurant's employees were, some topics were sensitive for reasons beyond official classification.

"As for myself, I was brought in to start preparing for my new command," Hannah said, giving her daughter a meaningful look. "I've been tapped as the prospective commanding officer for 2nd battle squadron, Eighth Fleet."

Shepard cocked her head aside. "Oh? The admiralty is going to reconstitute 2nd squadron so quickly?"

One major consequence of the Battle of the Citadel was the rather severe winnowing of the Citadel Fleet. The heavy damage to the _Destiny Ascension_, the loss of all four dreadnaughts in the turian battle squadron, plus the countless other frigates and cruisers destroyed, had severely reduced the fleet's standing strength. The high number of losses also meant the Council races could not quickly make them up by shifting fleet assets from other places. Those units they could peel off needed time to work up, and the number that could be so transferred was also limited lest they leave other parts of Council space vulnerable.

The Fifth Fleet battle squadron that arrived to reinforce the Citadel Fleet during the attack by Sovereign could also not remain in the Serpent Nebula forever, seeing as the Empire itself needed those ships to defend Arcturus. The time it did spend there however suggested to certain parties that even if Fifth Fleet could not remain indefinitely, the Empire was a potential source for naval assets powerful enough to help defend the Citadel. The resulting discussions and negotiations eventually saw the establishment of the Imperial Tenth Fleet, formed by peeling off Eighth Fleet's 2nd battle squadron and reinforcing it with a couple of additional cruiser squadrons, and assigning the new fleet as the Terran Empire's contribution to the Citadel's defense. Exactly why the numeration of the new fleet skipped a number from eight to ten was something of a mystery to the navy's rank and file.

There had been some hemming and hawing over accepting such a contribution from a polity that was still not willing to subordinate itself to Council authority, but there was also a growing recognition that as much as the Empire needed to change to integrate with galactic society, the Council too needed to adapt to accommodate the needs of those states nominally under its care. In addition to serving as a concrete demonstration of the Empire's willingness to carry its weight as part of the wider galactic community, its willingness to also downsize Eighth Fleet, widely known to be the Empire's strategic offensive fleet, served to assuage other polities of humanity's militaristic ambitions. In the long term however, the Empire still intended to maintain Eighth Fleet as a ready striking force. Arguably awareness of the Reaper threat only added further impetus to restoring Eighth Fleet's full combat power as quickly as possible.

"Quick might be an overstatement," Hannah said, "since the new squadron will need to be constituted from all-new construction."

"Ah," Shepard nodded. "Then I suppose congratulations are in order, Admiral Shepard."

The rank hierarchy for flag officers within the Imperial Terran Navy started with rear-admirals as its lowest permanent rank, equivalent to a major-general in the army and marine forces. The one star equivalent of commodore was a brevet position assigned to senior captains of frigate flotillas attached to larger squadrons or other ad-hoc squadrons that might be pulled together in times of need. Rear-admirals served as commanding officers for larger assault squadrons, composed of both frigates and cruisers. One step up was the rank of vice-admiral, whom usually served in either staff roles or as divisional commanders for the Empire's battle squadrons. Until recently, Hannah had been the divisional commander for Third Fleet's singular carrier division. Full admirals commanded the main battle squadrons that served as the core of the Empire's numbered fleets, much as Hannah would soon do for Eight Fleet's 2nd battle squadron. The only ones that stood above such officers, at least at the operational level, was the fleet admiral that commanded the entirety of one of the Empire's numbered fleets.

Hannah smiled slightly. "I suppose I could say the same to you, Lieutenant-Colonel Shepard." The smile thinned even further. "After all, you're here at Ganymede to await your new command as well, no?"

"A command is something the navy hands you," Shepard responded. "What I'm here for now is more of a consultant gig."

From the way Hannah regarded her daughter, the elder Shepard did not entirely believe the younger. But Shepard did not consider it her responsibility to satisfy her mother's curiosity, and so Hannah was left to her own speculations.

"How long do you expect this, consultancy, to last?" Hannah inquired.

"However long it needs to."

The admiral's lips thinned again, but still Hannah did not press too hard. Instead the woman shifted the topic back to herself, which uncharacteristically Shepard might be more willing to discuss than the colonel's own activities.

"The admiralty's been working very hard to make sure there's never another Eden Prime," Hannah began. "What happened to the dreadnaught division there was a wakeup call. We always thought the fleet could stand up to any of the other great powers, but then we ended up coming short at just the moment we were needed."

"Hard to prepare for something you don't know about," Shepard responded. "Then again, now that we've seen one superdreadnaught like that, it'd be pretty stupid of us to get blindsided again like that just because we thought there weren't more out there."

"Exactly," Hannah said. "Have you been following the technical analysis that's been disseminated about Sovereign?"

"At least what's available at my classification level," Shepard said.

Which arguably in some respects was even higher than Hannah's, while being lower in others.

"So you've read up on the main gun Sovereign mounted?"

A nod there. "The techs were calling it a magnetohydrodynamic cannon, which sounds like geek for fancy wave motion gun that uses a magnetic field."

"It is a bit wordy," Hannah said, allowing a slight smile to show, "but the name does capture the essence of what the weapon is."

The what being a molten alloy kept at such high temperatures by a high-pressure mass effect field, which could also accelerate the mixture to several fractions the speed of light. No known defense existed that could survive being hit by the molten beam, neither shields nor armor, and that included the very defenses that Sovereign itself mounted. But just because the MHD cannon mounted by Sovereign could punch through its own shields with ease, did not mean copies built by humanity or the other polities could match that same lethality.

"So is the navy actually going to get a gun big enough to do the same?" Shepard asked.

"Not quite," Hannah admitted. "We can't achieve the same degree of systems efficiency that that superdreadnaught's system could, even if we built something as big. And building out to two kilometers outright adds so much mass that we'd be pushing hard against the limits of our own inertial compensator technology. Instead the navy has opted to go for something a bit smaller, but which still packs a hell of a punch."

Shepard tilted her head. "The Kilimanjaro-class are just over a kilometer in length. This sounds like the navy's going with an entirely new design."

"They are," Hannah nodded. "And while the navy isn't quite ready to publicly talk about the Fisher-class yet, they actually laid down the hulls six months ago."

"Already?" Shepard said. That the colonel had not known, even with her elevated clearance.

"It'll be close to another year before they're ready for commissioning," Hannah continued, "but the Fisher-class promises to be some of the most powerful warships ever built. If the simulations are right, each would be more than a match for the _Destiny Ascension_, and two of them would have more than enough firepower to take down a Sovereign-type superdreadnaught."

Previous dreadnaught designs required at minimum an advantage of three-to-one, but to guarantee a kill generally saw the Empire deploy a full squadron of four capital ships. That made the decrease to only two dreadnaughts more impressive than it might appear at first glance.

"How many of the new Fisher-class have been laid down?" Shepard asked.

"Just a single squadron so far," Hannah said. "The new design is extremely expensive even for a dreadnaught, especially with all the bells and whistles that BuShips took the opportunity to throw in."

"I'm sure the prime minister had lots of fun getting _that_ budget through parliament," Shepard said dryly.

Hannah chuckled. "Well, it's what majorities are for. And the way things are going, it's only going to get more expensive."

All too true that, if the galaxy was to marshal the necessary military assets to give them some kind of chance against the Reapers. Shepard regarded her mother, idly wondering just how much the older woman was read in on the actual threat. She may well have been, seeing as Hannah was being given command of what was more or less the first purpose built anti-Reaper fleet.

"Still, all this talk of MHD guns and whatnot sounds like we're still playing catchup," Shepard remarked. "We're not going to win if all we do is copy the other guy. We need a genuine edge of our own, something that's outright better than what they've got."

"You're not wrong there," Hannah said, taking another sip of her tea, another difference between her and her daughter.

Any tea placed in front of Shepard would see her dump copious amounts of sugar into, while anyone that dared dangle any cubes near her cup of coffee would be lucky to escape with just broken fingers. It was not however Hannah's tea that caused Shepard to narrow her eyes there. The way that Hannah avoided looking at her daughter when she made that last remark, along with a few other tells that augmented humans like Shepard could pick up, made pretty clear that her mother _did_ know about efforts to develop such edges. Again, that would not be surprising if those weapons were intended for deployment with Eighth Fleet's new battle squadron. But whatever those other developments were, they were obviously not accessible by Shepard, and therefore Hannah would not be breathing a word about them.

"Still," it was Shepard's turn to guide the conversation along lines that the two could publicly discuss, "I would have thought the admiralty would have picked a more impressive mountain to name these new dreadnaughts after. I mean, sure there is a Mount Fisher, but it's not really one of the greats."

"You think they named the Fisher-class after a mountain?" Hannah said, the edge of her lips quirking upwards.

"That's what all of the dreadnaughts have been named after," Shepard responded with a shrug.

"I suppose that's true enough," Hannah said. "For these ships however, the admiralty decided they wanted something a bit more, emphatic. It hasn't been publicized yet, since the ships are still quite some ways from commissioning, but the lead ship of the class will actually be called the _John Fisher_."

That saw Shepard blinking a few times. "Wait, really?"

Hannah nodded, openly smiling in amusement at her daughter's surprise. "Names have also been picked for the others. The _Francis Drake_, _Horatio Nelson_, and _Matthew Perry_."

Ever a student of history, Shepard easily recognized those names. Each was an admiral that served at a pivotal moment in the Empire's history, and in the case of Perry and Fisher also helped spearhead major advancements in the terrestrial navy's warfighting capabilities, Perry with the introduction of steamships and Fisher with his dreadnaughts and battlecruisers. Emphatic indeed was the meaning of choosing to make these dreadnaughts their namesakes.

"Well, I suppose the family should be proud that they picked Jacky's name for one of the ships," Shepard said.

"I'd like to think we are," Hannah Shepard nee Fisher said.

The relation was rather distant considering how many generations back it went, but Shepard and her mother were indeed descendants of the famed John Fisher. Shepard's own brother had even been named Jonathan in partial honor of that particular ancestor. Someone on the admiralty board was probably patting themselves on the back over the serendipitous connection that came from giving Hannah a ship that included the _John Fisher_.

"A shame you'll be flying your flag from a carrier though," Shepard said.

"And what makes you say that?"

Shepard's eyebrow arched upwards again. "Really?"

"The Fisher-class has several major enhancements over that of the Kilimanjaro," Hannah stated, "one of which is considerably more extensive command-and-control facilities. It's also not entirely clear if the carrier division that would be attached to the squadron will be ready at the same time as the dreadnaughts, so the admiralty decided to just simplify things and have me fly my flag from one of them instead."

There it was again, that flicker in Hannah's tone. There was a reason for why the carriers might not be ready in time, but it was not a reason she could share. Shepard kept her curiosity in check. It was not like her knowing sooner rather than later would have any impact. Indeed, considering what she was about to delve into, it was probably better she not know anything more about the Empire's weapons development program than she absolutely needed.

"Ah, looks like our dishes are ready," Hannah said.

The waiter approached their table, tray in hand and deftly set each plate down with practiced ease.

"Mm, smells good," Shepard remarked.

"I would certainly hope so, considering what they charge," Hannah said with a playful smile.

"Hey, you're a full admiral now," Shepard countered. "Affording something like this should be easy."

"Well, maybe for a regular portion," Hannah said, looking at the three plates of brisket set before her daughter.

Shepard flashed a playful smirk. "What can I say, I'm a growing girl."

Hannah snorted as she began cutting into her own steak. The food was at least worth the price, and the company was also fortuitously agreeable this evening. It was not always the case, there were plenty of dinners where the atmosphere ranged from prickly to frigid. Today though, Hannah was able to spend a quiet evening with her daughter. She prayed that there would be more to come.

* * *

"Colonel Shepard," Miranda's voice sounded, "we're ready."

Shepard turned away from the viewport she had been gazing out through and gave a nod to the other woman. Sitting still behind the colonel was the gleaming form of the SR2, fresh coat of paint and all. Stepping down from the observation deck, Shepard was greeted with the sight of two dozen or so men and women. Some were familiar faces, others had slowly become so over the past few months. All shared a steely determination, one mirrored on Shepard's own expression.

"Vengeance," Shepard began. "I'm not going to lie, but that's the reason I'm here. Vengeance, for the _Normandy_. Vengeance for Artemis, for Charles, for Jamin, Addison, Germeen, Rosamund, Silas, Amina, Carlton, Marcus, Talitha, Helen, Hector, Mandira, Monica, Alexei, Robert, Caroline, Orden, Harvey, Raymond, Abishek. For John."

With every name the colonel reeled off, several of the faces looking back at her grimaced or even winced. Others maintained a solemn, respectful stoicism.

"The day the Collectors thought they could take away so much from us," Shepard continued, "was the day that sealed their fate. Cause if there's one thing about us humans, we can be a petty, vindictive bunch. We don't turn the other cheek. We don't let others walk all over us. We can be the best, most loyal of friends, but we can also be implacable enemies. And that day, the Collectors made enemies out of us. Out of _me_."

The colonel's eyes actually seemed to flash a fiery orange at that, and the seams of her scars similarly took on a subdued glow.

"I won't stop," Shepard declared. "Not until the Collector threat is ended, permanently. And if that means I need to personally put a bullet into the head of every Collector in existence, then that's exactly what I'll do."

The barest flicker of concern was starting to appear on some of the crew, even if the count was still well in the minority. Each person had signed on to this mission for their own reasons. Some did so because they shared in the colonel's desire for vengeance, while others joined because they felt it was the best way they could help protect their fellow terrans. So far the colonel was evoking greater resolve in the former than the latter. But Shepard being Shepard, inspiring _everyone_ under her command was as natural as breathing.

"I won't stop," the colonel repeated, "because of my vendetta. But I won't _fail_ because of all of you, my crew. You've placed your trust in my command, even though you have to know I'd be out for blood. That I might go to extremes to exact my vengeance. But you're still here, and that makes every single one of you worthy of not just my trust, but also my faith. Because you're my crew, and that by itself is all that's needed. We'll go the full length, every single one of us, of that I have no doubt."

Shepard shifted slightly so that she was glancing out the viewport.

"Just as I have no doubt that the next time the Collectors come face to face with the _Normandy_, they will rue ever crossing swords with us, and with humanity."

Across the length of the ship, in large letters clearly visible from the observation deck, was spelt out the name of the newly christened frigate. There was a solemn weight behind that name, an obligation that came with it. It was an obligation that none doubted would be met however, not with one Evangeline Shepard once more in command of the _Normandy_, even if the payment would be in blood.

End of Chapter 4

The last time Shepard fought the Saren husk, she had the backup of her squad and they only defeated it after Shepard nearly got herself killed overloading her augmentations. This time around, Shepard faced the simulated husk by herself, which had also been upgraded to be more durable than analysis of Saren's remains indicated it should be, and she pretty much handed it its ass. That should give all of you some idea the performance improvements from her new suite of implants.

It's rather interesting, the exact wording that is being used to make it so Shepard's mission isn't being conducted under the official auspices of the navy. Technically right now the _Normandy_ is undergoing final trials before she is accepted into the navy as an active duty ship, so for the time being it's the SS _Normandy_, not HMS _Normandy_. For all practical purposes, it's a legal fiction, but it's one that was needed to allow for sufficient plausible deniability. That being said, depending on how long the hunt for the Collectors take, the new _Normandy_ might set a new record for just how long it spent on 'trials' before being put on active duty.

There has been some considerable timeskip involved with the last couple of chapters, think on the order of months. By the end of this chapter almost a year has passed since the destruction of the _Normandy_, so a year shorter than the canonical timeskip. Even so, the events that have unfolded in the interim are much more extensive than what happened in canon, as hinted at in the previous chapter.

A while back I asked my French readers about Napoleonic era French generals. Originally the four superdreadnaughts were intended to be named after famous generals of that era from multiple nations, excluding Napoleon himself, cause like hell the Terran Empire was going to name a ship in honor of the political leader of one of their more annoying historical adversaries even if they are willing to honor some of the other French generals. Using the name of army generals may yet happen for future iterations of the Fisher-class, but in the short term I ultimately decided to use naval admirals instead of army generals.

This chapter actually went through at least two iterations, with the first draft having Shepard be introduced to the new ships by Anderson instead of her mother. I ultimately didn't use that version, because the intended timing for the scene as originally drafted wasn't even for this point in the story, and as I fleshed out more story points I ultimately ended up needing Anderson elsewhere. Incidentally that is not why it took so long to get this chapter out, work has just been very busy of late to the point that I haven't had much time to sit down and write. That isn't likely to change within the short term, so progress on all of my stories will likely remain slow.

Of all of the romance options, Traynor actually was one of those that clicked less for me. Part of it I think was due to the way that Shepard behaved when around Traynor, there was a slight dissonance compared to how Shepard generally carried herself that meant it felt like the Shepard that romanced Traynor and the Shepard that did basically everything else in the game were two separate people. While one could argue that we're ostensibly seeing another side of Shepard, the presentation didn't feel very smooth or cohesive.

Technically it'd be the Catalyst that Shepard would be shooting in the face. Not that my story would have the Catalyst, at least not in the form that appeared in the game.

Seeing as there will be a third part to the story, that implicitly means Shepard will _not_ be joining the Andromeda Initiative and will instead remain within the Milky Way to fight the upcoming war against the Reapers.


	6. Chapter 5

_So the navy tries to be pretty accommodating to people in the service with family, so Mom and Dad were always assigned to the same station when they were still together. Mom usually had some posting aboard ship, while Dad tended to be on a station assignment. That meant me and John actually saw Dad more often than Mom. Probably why Dad understood me so much better than Mom did. Once the divorce went through, I went with Dad and John went with Mom. Officially both had visitation rights with the kid that was in the other's custody, but that didn't mean much once the new transfer orders came in. Mom was rotated out to Eden Prime, while Dad and I headed to Sol. That was the only place equipped to do first stage integration for someone as young as me at the time._

_Anyway, once we got to Earth, Dad bought us a place in Vancouver, his old hometown. At the time I wasn't really sure why he bothered, since I was in Geneva quite a bit as part of my integration and his official posting was at Luna, not anywhere on Earth. But looking back, we had a lot of fun times with that place. Whenever he had leave, he'd take me around the city and the surrounding countryside, or we'd spend time in the small workshop he had set up at home, or play games in the living room. So yeah, that house really was where I felt most at home, even if we weren't always there. And it still is my home. Mine, not Mom or John's. I let them use it when they're on Earth, but they are guests in my house. Mine and Dad's._

_-Evangeline Shepard, Mandatory Counseling Log 005_

Chapter 5

Cum gladio et sale

The communications room aboard the _Normandy_ SR2 had one thing going for it over the original, it had tables on which the attendees could put things on. Case in point, there was a scattering of tablets and partially drained cups atop them now as Shepard conferred with a select few members of her crew.

"Fifteen outposts and colonies hit so far, all far off the beaten path of regular patrols," Shepard remarked as she took a sip of coffee. "Total missing, a little over twelve thousand people. And so far the abductors haven't left even a single scrap of forensic evidence? That seems mildly impossible just from a probability standpoint."

"Impossible or not, these Collectors have done it," Miranda said. "None of the locations hit held any traces of the attackers. All databanks were scrubbed, some sort of ionizing pulse charge was used to sterilize the sites of any biological residue, and no one ever managed to get out a mayday."

"So at minimum the Collectors seem able to neutralize any colonists before they can raise an alarm or try to flee," Shepard said. "We have to assume they could do the same to anyone that tries to intervene during the abduction."

"Not something I'd want to walk into unprepared, ma'am," Jacob Taylor, the only other member of Shepard's squad that possessed formal military service experience, said.

"Me neither," Shepard agreed. "But until we actually can see what exactly the Collectors are doing, there's not much we can do in terms of countermeasure development." The colonel glanced over at Miranda. "Not much we can do in that department without a proper specialist, for that matter."

"We've made some progress in finding candidates for the role," Miranda responded without missing a beat. "There is a salarian specialist that we believe to be especially suited to the role, and which can probably be convinced to work under you. The issue right now is finding him, as he seems to have left salarian space for the Terminus Systems."

The colonel shrugged. "We'll make do in the meantime, but if the Collectors are using those cruisers of theirs for these abductions, it's not like we could stop them with just the _Normandy_ anyway."

Despite their best efforts, Cord-Hislop had not managed to come up with anything to serve as an equalizer offensively for the frigate. That was not terribly surprising, considering the enemy cruiser by virtue of its much greater mass simply had more area to work with for mounting weapons. On the other hand, if the upgrades to the stealth system panned out, they might at least be able to sneak some scans while the Collectors went about their business. That would implicitly leave the colonists to their nonexistent mercies, but there were times when one had to make a choice between saving the few now or saving countless many later.

"Based on the number of colonies and outposts hit so far, we should have enough data points to come up with a basic heuristic to see what other potential targets are," Shepard noted. "Right, EDI?"

"That is correct, Colonel," the AI responded. "At present however there are over five hundred sixty-two candidate targets, spread across some twenty thousand lightyears."

Due to the way settlements clustered around mass relays, the actual amount of colonized space within those twenty thousand lightyears was of much smaller volume than the numbers implied. Even so, it still took time to traverse such distances, meaning it was down to chance and luck whether the _Normandy_ would happen to be in the neighborhood if or when a Collector ship dropped by. There was also the issue of none of the previous settlements managing to get out a call for help, so the _Normandy_ would need to rely on other means to figure out if someplace was under attack. Ironically, the complete communications blackout that the Collectors seemed able to achieve actually served as a pretty good indicator of what was happening, assuming one knew to look for it. There was always the chance they'd waste time investigating false positives, some colony losing communications because of an accident or stellar phenomenon instead of an attack, but that was the nature of their current search. No stone could be left unturned, lest they miss a genuine chance at the Collectors.

As Shepard glanced through the list of potential targets, her eyebrow arched upwards.

"EDI, some of these colonies are pretty large," she said. "Large enough to even host their own self-defense forces. As far as I know though, the Collectors haven't hit any settlements that big."

"While those settlements are currently in a lower probability tier, they do share certain characteristics with those previously attacked," EDI explained. "Principally, all of them are beyond official imperial borders and are nominally if not outright completely independent worlds."

"That is true," Shepard murmured.

"In addition, there is a definite upward trajectory in the sizes of settlements being attacked," the AI continued. "According to the current projections, assuming the trend does not plateau outright, the Collectors will likely start hitting medium sized colonies within the next few months."

Shepard's eyes narrowed at that bit. If what EDI predicated came to pass, that would start putting the number of abductees from the tens of thousands easily into the hundreds of thousands.

"But why," the colonel murmured. "Why bother going after human colonies like this in the first place?"

"The Collectors are reputed to be masters at biotechnology," Miranda said. "If that is indeed the case, it is likely they are abducting humans for experimentation purposes."

Jacob scowled at that, while Shepard's own expression remained more contemplative.

"We're missing something here," the colonel stated. "The Collectors tended to be more specific in their previous depredations, at least if the rumors are to be believed. They've never attempted such wholesale abductions."

"Does it matter why they're doing it?" Jacob asked. "We've got to stop them either way."

"That's a given," Shepard said. "But stopping the abductions does not necessarily equal stopping whatever the Collectors are trying to do."

That drew curious looks from the other two.

"Do you suspect something, Colonel?" Miranda asked.

Shepard finished draining her cup and set it aside. "The Collectors are supposedly masters of biotechnology. At minimum then we should be able to assume whatever the Empire can do in terms of bioengineering, they can as well, and probably also do it better too. If all they needed was human tissue for some experiment, it would arguably be faster and easier for them to just clone or print whatever tissues they need."

"Huh, never thought of it that way," Jacob commented.

"They obviously want live humans, possibly a wide genetic sampling as well," Miranda however was quick to try and draw some conclusions nonetheless.

"Live humans," Shepard pursed her lips. "Or live human minds?"

To that the others looked at Shepard quizzically again.

"What do you mean, Colonel?" Miranda asked.

"The Reapers are a synthetic race," Shepard stated, "while the Collectors are supposed masters of biotechnology. If the Collectors are indeed in league with the Reapers, what then is the one thing that for all their biotechnology, they can't easily replicate that might be of interest to a synthetic intelligence? Surely not our flesh and blood, synthetics have no need for biological inputs. But what about our minds?"

To that Jacob and Miranda found they had nothing to say in response. Instead the two felt a slight chill run down their spines.

"Well, that's still just idle speculation though," Shepard said, flashing a wry smirk. "Could just be a figment of my overactive imagination."

Jacob let out a nervous chuckle, while Miranda tried to feign thoughtful consideration. Still, now that the idea had been planted, neither found it at all easy to set the haunting notion aside.

* * *

Shepard regarded the thermal clip in her hand with a flat, neutral expression. "I'm mildly surprised the entire galaxy was able to agree to a standardized form factor so quickly."

"Well, when all the bean counters realized what it meant that we now needed to ship basic ammo everywhere, there was a whole lotta incentive to try to make it as cheap as possible," Jacob said.

The two were standing in the _Normandy's_ armory, Shepard having come down to do some maintenance on her own gear and finding Jacob doing much the same. Cerberus had gone above and beyond in trying to make the ground team was kitted out with the very best available, which meant pretty much everything stocked in the armory were either new or updated variants of weapons designed to use the new disposable thermal clips for heat dissipation instead of the older built-in venting heatsinks.

The thermal clip concept had actually been inspired by geth weapons recovered during the hunt for Saren, examination of which revealed they were what allowed for the much greater rate of fire those guns demonstrated. The various galactic powers were quick to adopt this practice themselves, but it had still taken a bit of time to redesign existing guns and put together the manufacturing base to actually produce thermal clips in volume. Of course, considering how new the mechanisms were, there were plenty of kinks that were still being worked out.

"Can't say I like having to hump ammo around," Jacob said, "but if it's between that or being a sitting duck waiting for my gun to cool off, I can deal with it."

"Just make sure you make your shots count," Shepard said as she slotted the clip back into the container. "Otherwise it won't matter how much ammo you're hauling, especially with that gun."

"What, this?" Jacob said, looking down at the shotgun he was working on. "You think I can't nail headshots with this, ma'am?"

Shepard gave a snort. "I've used the Crusader before, and it has good stopping power, but if you're fighting close quarters, I'd take a Scimitar or even a Katana instead."

"Fair enough," Jacob agreed. "But if I need to deal with someone up close, I can just pull out the pistol. This baby here's for stopping them at arm's length. It'll even blow through light cover to do it, too."

"You don't say," Shepard drawled, even as she kept her eyes fixed on the rifle laid out in front of her.

Jacob gave a wry chuckle. "Well, us mere mortals without unlimited budgets do need to know when to settle."

Shepard returned the chuckle, then lifted the very hefty, in more than one way, rifle. The former marine lieutenant could not help but whistle in admiration.

"Think this is the first I've seen a Saber, ma'am," Jacob said. "At least outside of a vid."

"Had to special requisition this one from the Cadre armory," Shepard said. "Somehow I doubt even Cerberus would have been able to come up with one before our departure date."

The M-99 Saber was arguably one of the finest rifles produced by the Terran Empire, able to blow through kinetic barriers and armor with contemptuous ease. They were also ludicrously expensive, since the barrel, receiver, and a few other crucial components needed to be milled to very tight tolerances out of an extremely hard alloy to provide the necessary strength to withstand the gun's own firepower. That took time and specialized equipment to do, and not even the Imperial Cadre had a big enough budget to make them standard issue for its troops.

"So we got just the one, huh?" Jacob said almost wistfully.

Shepard's grin widened. "And if you're a good boy, I'll even let you shoot off a few rounds at the range one day."

"Well, considering how much it weighs, probably not the best idea for me to try using it in the field."

The colonel glanced over at Jacob. Even discharged, the former marine hardly looked out of shape. Considering Jacob's serious demeanor, what she saw probably was what there was and Jacob had maintained his physical fitness at peak levels. His reluctance to carry the M-99 in the field therefore had nothing to do with whether he was strong enough to do so, it was probably due to that peculiar quirk where a biotic's mass directly correlated to the amount of energy needed for them to exercise their powers.

"If you really are worried about weight, shouldn't you go for a lighter shotgun as well?" Shepard asked. "The Crusader is definitely on the heavier end of the spectrum."

"That's why I don't bother with a rifle," Jacob said. "Besides, this gun's seen me through a lotta shit, pardon the language ma'am, and it wouldn't feel right going out with something else."

"Fair enough," Shepard said, then chuckled again. "You know, the armory sergeants gave me merry hell for the fact that I managed to lose something like two rifles and two pistols over the course of hunting Saren. They warned me that if I lost any more guns, they'd take it out of my pay."

"Ouch," Jacob said, glancing over at some of the other pieces hanging on the wall.

The M-99 was not the only weapon Shepard had personally brought aboard. Alongside her trusty Carnifex, or rather her third trusty Carnifex, was a M-77 Typhoon, an assault rifle that seriously stretched the spirit of the classification. The only reason the light machinegun was not classified as an out and out heavy weapon was that it was still capable of using standard thermal clips instead of requiring specialized power cells. Shepard was however probably the only person on the squad that could actually carry and use the M-77 in the field thanks to her augments. That was probably just as well, seeing as they only had the one just like with the Saber.

If there was any commonality between the weapons Shepard had chosen to bring with her, besides their relative expense, it was that all were geared towards packing as much stopping power as possible into each shot. During the hunt for Saren, the colonel had run into far too many situations where her supposed primary weapon lacked the firepower necessary to put down an opponent, forcing her to fall back on her pistol. While the Carnifex fulfilled the very definition of a hand cannon, it did not have the range or the magazine to be employed in such a manner. One would hope with either the Saber of the Typhoon, Shepard would not find herself so lacking in the future. Of course, the tradeoff for that kind of firepower was a curtailment of her rate of file, but that Shepard expected to be easier to make up than just flat out being unable to penetrate an enemy's defenses.

"We'll have to see how well any of this works after the first deployment," Shepard said. "It really doesn't matter what the paper specs are, what really counts is how well they do in the field against an actual enemy." The colonel flashed a grin. "And how well they stand up to being manhandled by infantry."

Jacob gave a hearty chuckle. "True that, ma'am. But we are supposed to be officers, so one'd think we can be trusted with keeping a gun working."

"I don't know," Shepard said. "You were a lieutenant, Jacob, and I've heard tell that lieutenants can be trusted with either a gun or ammo, not both."

The laughter this time was much louder.

* * *

Due to being a synchronizer, Shepard could function on much less sleep than regular humans. On the flip side, thanks to her augments, she had a much higher calorie intake requirement than regular humans. As such it was not at all out of the ordinary to find the colonel munching on something at seemingly random hours. While Shepard was content, which was distinct from outright happy or satisfied, to subsist on ration packs should the mess staff not be awake to warm up something more palatable, one Rupert Gardner seemed determined that should the colonel want something to eat, he would be there to cook up something approximating real food. Some concessions had to be made due to space considerations on a mere frigate, after all.

"Here you go, ma'am," the balding man said as he set a tray of steaming food before Shepard.

"Thank you, Sergeant," Shepard said with a warm smile. "Mmm, looks like you've been putting the new provisions to good use."

While most of the preparations for the _Normandy's_ departure were completed without much fuss or muss, it was only after the frigate had left port that they discovered someone upstream in Cord-Hislop's logistics division had bobbled the food requisition and sent the ship a food shipment predominantly filled with K-grade nutrient packs instead of a more appropriately proportioned selection. Seeing as K-grades were supposed to be emergency last resort rations, they were edible as far as the legal definition went, but that was it. And while Rupert could hardly claim to be some master chef, even were he one there was not much the mess sergeant could have done to salvage meals for the first week of the _Normandy's_ cruise.

By the time the frigate pulled into a station, Shepard was pretty certain Miranda had seen to whomever was responsible for this screwup getting pink slipped for having subjected them, and the special projects directory herself in particular, to this travesty. The colonel herself was too busy supervising the delivery of actual, real food and making damn sure what they got was exactly what was on the requisition this time around to see to that little bit of bureaucratic reprisal. As starts to a journey went, it was hardly auspicious, but after the entire crew was treated to the most expensive restaurant at the station, the threat of out and out mutiny was at least past.

"Could hardly do any worse," Rupert said with a smirk. "Though maybe if I had another week, I coulda come up with something the crew wasn't choking down."

"Another week and Kenneth might have overloaded the driver core out of desperation," Shepard joked.

"That Scottish brat?" Rupert said. "Surprised he could tell the difference, considering his taste for haggis."

"Now, now, Sergeant," Shepard chided playfully. "It might taste like ass, but apparently there's such a thing as fine ass."

Rupert snorted. "Only fine ass I've ever seen is one still attached to a classy dame. Umm, no offense intended, Colonel."

This time it was Shepard's turn to snort. "None taken, Sergeant. If you can't appreciate the finer things in life, you probably aren't living to begin with."

That elicited a wider grin from the sergeant, and then a yawn overpowered his restraint.

"Now I know your shift actually ended a couple of hours ago, Sergeant," Shepard remarked. "You really don't need to be staying up late just for the sake of my midnight snack runs."

"Nah, ain't no problem, Colonel," Rupert waved it off. "Sides, this ain't some sorta pleasure cruise. We all gotta pull our weight."

Shepard took a sip of the accompanying coffee. "This is arguably the first time you've served aboard a ship instead of just being a passenger, I believe?"

Rupert nodded. "Used to work eezo rigs back, well, back in the day. Spent plenty of time aboard shuttles and work tugs, but those were small things. Hell, the _Normandy_ might as well be a cruise liner for all the space it has. And something that that could even pass for a kitchen!"

"Well, if we were a cruiser or a dreadnaught, there would be an actual kitchen onboard," Shepard remarked. "Though can't say what they put out is actually any better than what I'm having now."

"Is that supposed to be a compliment, Colonel?" Rupert said playfully.

"I'll leave that to your imagination."

The two shared a chuckle before Rupert yawned again.

"Suppose you're right though," the mess sergeant said. "I really should turn in, now that you're all set up."

"And you have my thanks, Sergeant," Shepard said, raising her mug in a toast. "Just try to make sure you're not too tired to feed the rest of the crew. They might get a bit grouchy with me if they think I'm the one keeping them from getting a good meal."

Rupert rubbed the back of his neck. "I ain't that old yet, Colonel. Sides, it's the least I can do, especially for someone that got stuck in all the time against those damn pirates and slavers."

As with all the other _Normandy_ crew, Shepard had received a detailed dossier on the mess sergeant. From it, she knew that Rupert's general xenophobia had always been with the man, even if it had been greatly magnified after he lost his entire family to a pirate raid on the colony they lived at. Conversely, Rupert was capable of an almost extreme level of dedication and out and out loyalty to those that he considered family and friends. Case in point, his almost vigil-like attendance to Shepard's nightly meals. And despite the snarky back and forth with other crewmembers about his cooking, there was a reason no one ever left a bite unfinished, even during the K-ration fiasco.

"Night, Rupert," Shepard said.

"Night, Colonel," the mess sergeant said, leaving Shepard to enjoy her meal in peace.

Even as the colonel munched away, her mind continued working as she interacted with EDI and dealt with some of the built-up minutiae associated with commanding a ship. Basic logistics seemed to have settled down after their last top-off, and now she only had to worry about the more lethal requisitions in the pipeline. While the _Normandy_ had a good stock of small arms and even a few heavy weapons, they still had no word on when their ground support vehicle would be ready for pickup. That was becoming more than a bit annoying, seeing as without a better understanding of how the Collectors were overwhelming colonies without so much as any evident resistance, the environmentally sealed interior of an AFV might well be crucial to investigating the abductions.

"Oh, hello Colonel."

Whatever surprise Kelly might have felt upon catching sight of Shepard was not reciprocated, seeing as the colonel had noticed her approach the moment the woman exited the elevator.

"Ms. Chambers," Shepard greeted in between mouthfuls.

"Ah, on another one of your midnight snack raids," Kelly said with a smile. "I was just going to get a bite myself before turning in."

"I see," Shepard said simply.

While Shepard was not intentionally trying to be on guard against Kelly, there was also no real point pretending much commonality with the other woman. Kelly was civilian through and through, having never even fired a weapon before stepping aboard the _Normandy_. That only changed after Shepard insisted all members of the crew be proper qualified, regardless of how bad a shot anyone thought they were or actually was. While the colonel hardly expected the crew to be performing boarding actions or riding to the rescue of the ground team, it would be rather stupid if in the absolute worst case they couldn't even put up a token resistance of the need arose.

And because she had been the one to order them, Shepard personally oversaw a few of the training sessions to get the crew up to speed on small arms. While the colonel was nowhere as much of a hard ass as the corps' drill sergeants were, she was still less than tolerant of anyone giving anything less than their all. No one coasted through her sessions, and everyone kept at it until they met minimum standards for qualification. Namely, actually hitting the target they were aiming at and not just by accident.

Achieving qualification had come more easily for some than others. Rupert actually qualified on his first try, the long years working on the frontier having instilled within him the necessary discipline to buckle down and persevere. Kelly on the other hand still had trouble with a firearm. Holding one and actively trying to hit something actually seemed to be one of the few things that could perturb the otherwise cheerful woman. It was an anxiety that Shepard could not comprehend, even if intellectually the colonel knew it to be possible. Indeed, the short time they had so far spent together aboard the _Normandy_ seemed only to accentuate their differences.

"There's still no sign of any abnormalities in the status pings."

Case in point, Kelly had a tendency to chitchat regardless of the situation.

"I suppose that is good, since it means no other colonies have been hit by the Collectors," she continued even as she worked to heat up some food. "I know we need the Collectors to do something in order to track them, but I can't help but think about all the people that'll be sacrificed in the process."

The yeoman was being earnest there, she was not trying to display some bleeding heart to warm up to Shepard. That much the colonel could appreciate.

"I suppose then that talking about it like this is a coping mechanism for you?" Shepard not so much asked as stated.

"In the broadest sense, yes," Kelly responded without missing a beat. "The distress I feel is certainly strong enough that I need some way to deal with it, lest I get stuck in an emotional negative feedback loop. But talking about it with you specifically isn't to hear any platitudes from you. You're not the type to bother with them, after all."

Shepard raised an eyebrow. "So why bring it up then?"

"A few reasons," Kelly began. "The first is, unlikely as it may be, in the case you yourself wanted to talk about it. Your reputation places you as a highly competent soldier, but one that cares deeply about both combatants and noncombatants in your theater of command."

To that Shepard snorted. "I suppose I'll take that as a compliment, so long as you don't forget I'm a marine, not a soldier."

"Ah, yes," Kelly said with a playful smile. "This isn't the first time I've heard of the distinction, but it's not something I've internalized like those in the service. I'll be sure to keep it in mind for the future."

"You do that," Shepard said with a shrug.

"Anyway," Kelly continued. "The second reason is, by talking to you about it from a purely civilian perspective, instead of a military or tactical one that Miranda or Jacob would provide, you might be able to see the problem from a different angle. And while this might just be some wishful thinking on my part, perhaps that different angle might spark some inspiration on your part to find some way to save all those people, even while achieving the main mission."

To that Shepard regarded Kelly with a blank expression. "What if bringing it up like this just ends up reminding me of how helpless I am to help them, and gets me stuck in my own negative feedback loop?"

"Based on your profile, and my own personal impression, I'm not sure that would even be possible, Colonel," Kelly stated.

The eyebrow rose again. "Oh?"

"As part of my duties as ship yeoman, I provide psychiatric counseling and support for the crew," Kelly stated. "That also includes yourself, Colonel, and I've done my homework so that I have at least a basic understanding of your psychiatric background. While there certainly exists topics and situations that will cause you, disquiet, nothing has yet appeared that actually gives you pause, mentally speaking that is. The current situation with the colonies? Severe as it may seem, you've faced challenges far greater without faltering. Whatever concern or anxiety you may feel, you already know how to channel those emotions into necessary action instead of letting them feed back upon themselves."

Shepard chewed a bit on the spoon in her mouth as she considered Kelly's words. The other woman was clearly well-versed in her profession, and probably better at it than a good percentage of her fellow practitioners. But the earnestness of Kelly's words, there was something else behind them as well that Shepard's enhanced senses were picking up.

"You sound like you admire that part about me quite a bit," Shepard said after popping the spoon out.

"Oh, I suppose I did gush a bit there," Kelly said, the faintest hints of a blush coloring her cheeks. "It's just that, we all heard what you did during the Battle of the Citadel, Colonel. And everything before that too. If anyone has claim to being the savior of the galaxy, it'd probably be you."

Shepard shrugged. "I won't deny I'm good at my job, but the galaxy is only saved when the Reapers are all dead, and killing kilometer-long dreadnaughts is a bit beyond any one person."

"Maybe so," Kelly said with a smile, "but it's still good to have you on our side, Colonel."

Shepard tilted her head. "And which side would that be, Yeoman?"

Before Kelly could respond, a beep sounded alerting them that EDI had a message.

"Colonel, we've picked up a distress signal on a quarian channel, originating from the Freedom's Progress colony."

Pieces of information clicked into place as Shepard reflexively queried for background. Freedom's Progress was a mining colony on the fringes of imperial space, with a population just barely over a thousand. It was also a formal imperial colony, meaning it recognized the authority of His Majesty's Government and paid taxes in exchange for all the duties and privileges of being imperial subjects. That represented a major escalation, as all previous raids had been on colonies outside the Empire's formal control, assuming this was a Collector attack in the first place.

"A quarian distress signal?" Shepard said quizzically, shifting focus to the other pertinent detail. "From a human colony?"

"Many quarians have been entering terran space on pilgrimages since the Battle of the Citadel," EDI stated. "Freedom's Progress could be hosting such pilgrims."

"What've we got then?" Shepard moved on even as she continued eating.

"Queries to the colony's data net have gone unanswered, and indeed there has been a distinct lack of communication pings for the last two hours."

Kelly inhaled sharply while Shepard's eyes narrowed. That certainly increased the probability of it being a Collector attack. The colonel considered other bits of information filtering into her head. Freedom's Progress might have been a relatively small colony, but it was prosperous enough to be able to afford a sizeable contingent of combat mechs. Assuming someone managed to activate them, that might explain how the colony held out long enough to get that call out. Of course, if those mechs were still active when Shepard and her team arrived, they might become a hindrance instead of an asset. For that problem to occur however they would first need to get to Freedom's Progress."

"Best time to the colony?"

"Four hours."

Shepard nodded. "Set course and pulse an update to our minders. Rouse Miranda and Jacob, I want the ground team suited up and ready an hour out. Go to general quarters immediately upon entering the system."

"Relaying orders," EDI said.

The colonel remained seated at the table though and continued working through her meal. There was still plenty of time after all. With every mouthful she took however, there was an intensity behind Shepard's gaze, even as she stared otherwise blankly before her. Perhaps that was why she did not notice the way Kelly continued regarding her as she ate, with a look that belayed more than just professional interest.

* * *

"Well what do we have here," Shepard remarked from her command station.

The colonel was already changed into her armor and had even taken the time to stow her weapons in the shuttle so they were ready and waiting instead of needing to make a hop over to the armory. With the softsuits the rest of the crew was in as part of general quarters, Shepard did not look quite as out of place in her own suit as she regarded the main projector.

A single contact was marked in orbit of the colony world, with a secondary magnified image showing a closeup. It was a small ship, a frigate not much larger than the old _Normandy_, which of course meant the new _Normandy_ handily outmassed it. The design was not human, being a ring with tail extrusions sticking out its back. Shepard had never seen these types before, at least not in person. She did however recognize them from archival footage and intelligence briefs.

"EDI, identify."

"IFF matches that of a Migrant Fleet frigate," the AI responded. "It is possible they are also here in response to the distress call."

If that were the case, then they were less liable to be hostile to the _Normandy's_ presence, once they realized they were not alone.

"Drop stealth and open a channel," Shepard ordered.

"Dropping steath," EDI confirmed, "channel open."

After giving the quarian ship a few moments to register the sudden appearance of her ship, Shepard began.

"This is Lieutenant-Colonel Evangeline Shepard of the Imperial Cadre. Quarian frigate, identify and state your purpose for entering imperial space."

Several seconds passed without a response, not a terrible surprise since the quarians probably were still trying to process everything that was happening. When one finally came, the monitor on Shepard's console lit up to show a typically helmeted quarian. A familiar helmeted quarian at that.

"Shepard, is that really you!?"

The woman in question raised an eyebrow. "Tali? Well, well, quite the small galaxy we seem to be in."

"I'll say," Tali said. "It's good to see you, M-no, Lieutenant-Colonel now, right? I only wish it were under better circumstances."

"I take it you're here in response to the distress call as well?" Shepard got right down to business.

The quarian nodded. "Yes."

"So there really are quarians down there?" Shepard inquired further.

"Just the one," Tali answered. "Veetor, he's on his pilgrimage right now, and found work at Freedom's Progress. A lot of my people have done the same across human colonies as of late."

"Following in your footsteps?" Shepard said with a slight smile.

"Something like that," Tali said. "Apparently my helping you hunt Saren helped bolster humanity's opinion of my people, so we're seeing a bit more acceptance on human worlds. That's made it easier for pilgrims to find jobs, places to live, and also made human colonies more willing to trade with the Migrant Fleet. In fact we were on our way back from a trade mission when we picked up the distress call."

The colonel nodded. "I see. And have you managed to figure anything out yet?"

Tali shook her head. "Nothing much. No one is answering hails down there, though our sensors are picking up a few energy signatures. We were about to send down a search team when your ship suddenly, well, appeared. I take it your current ship is also equipped with a stealth system."

"You presume correctly," Shepard responded. "My team and I will join you groundside. Freedom's Progress is still an imperial colony, so formal jurisdiction falls to any present imperial authorities."

While Tali's face was not visible so there was no expression for others to read, the way she hesitated made clear the quarian was feeling a certain reluctance, even wariness regarding Shepard's declaration.

"Umm, Shepard," she began rather gingerly. "Your ship, its IFF isn't naval."

"The _Normandy_ SR2 is a prototype currently undergoing builder's trials," Shepard explained. "As captain of the previous _Normandy_, I was requested to oversee the trials, of which I'm doing while on leave from the service. Even while on leave however, I am obliged by my oath to act in the defense of my fellow citizens."

There was another pause, as if Tali was trying to find the right words to say.

"And that builder would be, Cord-Hislop?"

Shepard raised an eyebrow and cast a sideways glance over at Miranda, whom was standing below the station and outside the camera's pickup. If even the quarians were able to see through Cord-Hislop as some sort of front organization, Cerberus had become way sloppier than was acceptable. All well and good that the organization was prepared to go to extreme lengths to achieve its goals, but if they could not contain the fallout, then Cerberus was not fit for purpose and was not worth the effort of even the token protection the Empire offered. That call was however well above her paygrade, and could be made another day.

"Cord-Hislop is one of the navy's primary builders," Shepard said instead, "and put together the original _Normandy_ as well. The terms of my contract with them for the trials are however quite clear, I hold operational command over the ship and her crew."

"I see," Tali said, sounding not exactly relieved but at least a little bit less wary. "Then we'll see you groundside, Colonel. _Espectus_ clear."

The channel closed and Shepard stepped down from the station, with Miranda falling in right beside.

"Was it wise to allow the quarians to deploy a team before we've had a chance to sweep the colony?" she asked.

"Seeing as the quarians aren't going to agree to sit this out without a direct threat to fire on them, the relative wisdom seems rather moot," Shepard stated bluntly.

Miranda's brow furrowed, but she did not argue the point the colonel raised.

"What assurances then do we have that their presence will not unduly interfere with our own investigation?"

That was not the same as having no point of her own to argue.

"None whatsoever," Shepard responded flippantly as the elevator doors closed.

"Colonel," Miranda said reprovingly.

"I find it odd that someone as experienced with fieldwork as yourself would go looking for assurances like that," Shepard said simply.

Miranda's jaw tightened ever so slightly. "While it may be impossible to account for all possibilities in a mission, a good operator knows it pays significant dividends to limit as much as possible the variability before going on."

"I agree," Shepard said, surprising Miranda for a moment. "Which is why Cerberus shouldn't have done whatever it was it did to put the quarians on guard even against its Cord-Hislop cover." The colonel regarded Miranda flatly. "To be frank, I doubt I'm the only one that'll feel aggrieved if all the effort that was put into fostering diplomatic ties with the quarians was suddenly wasted because your organization botched an op and got exposed."

A flicker of irritation flashed through Miranda's eyes. "If you are so lacking in confidence, Colonel, then why bother even accepting Cerberus' offer?"

"Well it certainly gives me a front row seat to assessing the competency of the organization as a whole," Shepard said. "And any fires that I end up needing to put out as we go alone will serve as additional datapoints for the final conclusion I'll be drawing."

The elevator came to a halt and the door opened, but Shepard was not quite done yet. Indeed she now directly faced Miranda and looked the other woman straight in the eye.

"I am well aware that Cerberus is trying to figure out the best way in which to entice me to sign on more permanently with your organization," the colonel stated. "I am also aware there is an ongoing assessment as to whether the risks outweigh the projected benefits. But that goes both ways, Ms. Lawson, and there is a very open question as to whether Cerberus is a worthwhile enough asset that warrants the Empire continue to turn a blind eye towards. So consider your organization to be on notice. If in the course of our hunt for the Collectors, it turns out that Cerberus' reputation so precedes it that association becomes an outright hindrance to achieving our mission, the balance of value versus risk will tilt accordingly, that I promise."

End of Chapter 5

A word of advice to certain readers. The stories I write do not seek to provide validation for your own beliefs or preconceptions, nor are they intended to help fulfill whatever personal fantasies you might hold. If these are the sort of things you want to the point of emotionally craving them, know that I will inevitably do something that will set you off, and I am utterly unapologetic about doing so. And since I am entirely apathetic to the fulfillment of your emotional needs, ask yourself whether it would be more productive and healthier for you to expend your time and energy elsewhere than to get worked up about a piece of fiction.

Anyway, as the opening snippet indicates, the house mentioned all the way back in chapter one of the previous part actually belongs to Shepard herself, it is her name and hers alone that is on the deed. Hannah once made the mistake of suggesting Shepard sell the place after Victor died. That may not be the gravest sin Shepard considers her mother to have committed against her, but it ranks pretty high up there, and is one reason why Hannah is very, very respectful when she does drop by and make use of the house. After all, as Shepard makes quite clear, her mother is a guest in _her_ house, and is expected to conduct herself accordingly.

Shepard is being rather overly blunt with Miranda, but that is partially right now the two still haven't established a smooth working relationship. While Miranda is a perfectly competent executive officer, she is still not quite used to not being the one in charge and keeps challenging Shepard's decisions, even if implicitly. And Miranda is so used to being right that whenever Shepard does make a decision that she disagrees with, she instinctively doesn't like it. So we have two headstrong women butting heads basically, and it'll take a few missions before the two see enough of each other's competency to reach any sort of understanding.

While work has been very busy of late, arguably my bigger problem has been a pretty severe case of writer's block. I have several major points in the story mapped out, but the padding in between I'm having a lot of trouble coming up with. Part of it is I'm still trying to work out what secondary plotlines do I want to interleave with the main story. The narrative worked as well as it did in my previous stories because every scene had a purpose, even if the payoff might be a dozen chapters later. I'm slowly getting there, but it's been a real slog as I basically map out the entire chain of events in my head.

That the Andromeda Initiative left without so much as a single proper warship has always strained belief. Even if it was a purely civilian venture, experience with their own galaxy should have indicated to the planners that some military muscle would be necessary, since even in the most secure regions there remains threats of piracy and the like. So, yes, my version of the AI will indeed be carrying a few proper warships with them, probably just up gunned frigates, but it won't be because it's being relied on more openly as a backup against the Reaper invasion. They'll be taking warships with them because of just plain common sense.


	7. Chapter 6

_I've never had a period. What? You lot wanted me to focus on the good that came out of my near-death experience as a child. I'd say never having to deal with the cramps to be a pretty good thing. Not that I didn't go through a messy transition all my own for other reasons. But anyway, yeah, I've never had a period. Of course that also comes with that little gotcha of not being able to have kids, but hey, life is full of tradeoffs, some better or worse than others._

_But anyway, yeah, there were some other complications as I grew up. For one, I never understood the whole fascination with boys that girls develop during secondary. Which means while my friends and classmates were, experimenting, during lycée and even at the academy, I never felt any inclination to date or anything. That continued after I went into the service, not that it would have been particularly easy to find a mister or missus right, what with the fraternization rules. So, yeah, I pretty much spent my entire life as a single bachelorette. Not sure if that's something I should be regretting or not, since I have no idea what if anything I'm missing out on. Kids, maybe. But I can't have any to begin with, so that's sort of a wash anyway. So, yeah, that tradeoff I mentioned before? What happened to me was a very big one in the royally sucks column._

_-Evangeline Shepard, Mandatory Counseling Log 007_

Chapter 6

Ductus exemplo

While Shepard was not actually rated to fly a Kodiak shuttle, she did know the controls well enough that, with some assistance from her AI partner, she could serve as a pilot in a pinch. In general though the colonel was more than happy to leave the job to the actual pilots, of which one Thomas Hawthorne was proving to be a perfectly competent example as he sped through the atmosphere towards the drop point.

"The quarians seem to be in something of a rush, ma'am," Thomas remarked.

"Looks like there're still some trust issues going on," Shepard responded from the copilot seat.

One consequence of the rather lean crew assigned to the new _Normandy_ was that there was a lot less redundancy in the various duty stations, so Shepard was not even kicking anyone out of their normally assigned seat. That being said, not having a proper copilot for the shuttle was veering a bit towards outright unsafe that Shepard intended to see about getting that slot properly filled.

"What're they worried about?" Thomas wondered aloud. "Aren't we all here for the same thing?"

Another thing about the current _Normandy_ crew, at least amongst the civilian complement, was a relative lack of discipline as compared to a purely military crew. That meant a lot more chatter and voicing of opinions, regardless of whether it was asked for or not. Shepard for the most part did not put her foot down too hard on the matter, with the understanding that when shit hit the fang, everyone would shut up and do their jobs.

"The quarians might have believed the navy cared about saving anyone that can still be saved down there," Shepard responded. "They have no reason to think the same of a private interest, however."

Whatever their background, at least none of her current crew was stupid or naïve, as Thomas' momentary silence now demonstrated. After all, knowing what questions not to ask also took a degree of intelligence and common sense.

"ETA twelve minutes to landing," Thomas ultimately said.

"Make it ten," Shepard ordered. "I don't want to be second on the ground here."

"Aye ma'am."

Even if the quarians had cause to be suspicious of anyone associated with Cord-Hislop, or the hand behind the company, Shepard was not obliged to accommodate those feelings. Not when she had a job to do. Her confidence in Thomas was amply rewarded when the pilot managed to get them to their target in under her ten minute deadline. As it was, Shepard and her squad ended up waiting a few for the quarians to touch down and disembark.

A full squadron of quarians stepped off their own shuttle, all well-armed and clearly ready for a fight. The one that stepped forward to greet Shepard was however not Tali.

"You're Colonel Shepard?" a male voice sounded.

"That's right. And you would be?"

"I'm Lieutenant Prazza. While you may be personally more familiar with Ensign Tali, I am the senior officer of the _Espectus'_ marine detachment."

Shepard shrugged. "Fine by me. So long as you follow orders as efficiently as Tali, we'll get along just fine."

"Follow orders?" Prazza spat. "I think you misunderstand something here, Colonel. We're here with our own mission, to rescue Veetor. While we won't get in your way if you promise us the same, we're not here to dance to your tune."

From behind, Shepard could see Tali shaking her head in exasperation. Apparently her attempts to talk reason with the good lieutenant had not gotten through his thick skull.

"The misunderstanding is no one but yours, Lieutenant," Shepard stated, emphasizing the rank. "Freedom's Progress is an imperial colony, and the Migrant Fleet has no jurisdiction to be putting boots on the ground without express permission from imperial authorities. While it may be easier to beg forgiveness than get permission had there not been any imperial authorities present, that is expressly not the case here and now. So if you want to risk a major diplomatic incident by trying to force your way past a direct representative of His Majesty, sure, try pushing your luck. Just know that unlike you, I don't bluff."

"So what you're saying is, Cord-Hislop really does speak for your government?" Prazza sneered.

Shepard raised an eyebrow. "Who said a thing about Cord-Hislop? I'm here as a member of the Imperial Cadre."

"Oh? So why the hell're you wearing those colors? And that logo?"

"The same reason every navy ship has the logo painted on at least some time during its life cycle. Cord-Hislop is a major contractor, and they build a lot of the navy's ships and gear. Or should others assume the Migrant Fleet is a bunch of pirates just because you have a few decommissioned batarian ships within your ranks?"

"Listen, you-"

"That's enough, Prazza," Tali finally interjected. "Colonel, I apologize for the lieutenant's attitude, but the Migrant Fleet has had been a few, incidents, involving humans wearing those colors. To see you in them is, more than a bit unsettling."

"Duly noted," Shepard said, then glanced over at Miranda. "Your boss and I will need to have a few words about what Charlie Foxtrot you people got into to make the Migrant Fleet so pissed." Then back to the quarians. "Now, can we get to work, or do you still need to get more chest thumping out of your systems."

"We're ready," Tali said, shooting Prazza a very cold look. "How do you propose we do this, Colonel?"

After waiting a beat to see if the quarian lieutenant would interrupt again, Shepard held out her hand and projected a map from her omnitool.

"Freedom's Progress has three different shelters that the colonists can evacuate to in case of attack." Dots appeared on the map, denoting each location. "Since we have three fireteams, that's one for each of us. The Bravo and Charlie sites I'll leave to your squad, my fireteam will deal with Alpha. Tali, can you tie us into your comm net?"

"Can do, Colonel," Tali affirmed, daring any of the others to challenge her.

When none did, Shepard continued. "We still don't have any idea of what exactly hit the colony, but there are suspicions that the Collectors are behind it."

"The Collectors?" Prazza spoke up. "What, you humans go chasing after myths and boogiemen often?"

"The Reapers were also a myth," Shepard said before Tali had a chance to reprimand the lieutenant. "Then one led a geth fleet and attacked the Citadel. How high do the bodies need to be piled up before the Collectors stop being a myth too?"

Remarkable how easily the quarian could be read even with his face obscured. Then again, the stiffness of his form told anyone that cared to notice the smoldering anger he felt. Shepard had seen it all before, a hotshot junior officer that cared more about being right and not getting shown up than getting the job done. He would not last long in the trenches, and certainly would not be seeing further advancement, at least not if his superiors were not equally bullheaded. But Prazza's long-term career was not Shepard's problem, she just needed to see through this specific mission and make sure the quarian did not screw anything up too spectacularly. Fortunately having been shut down again, Prazza seemed willing to keep his mouth shut, for now.

"There is also circumstantial evidence that the Collectors are agents of the Reapers," Shepard added.

That caused Tali to gasp, and a few of the other quarians even exchanged nervous murmurs.

"Our mission is a simple one," Shepard continued the briefing. "Neutralize any hostiles, secure the sight, and if we're lucky, find any survivors. If we're really lucky, we'll also find something that points to the identities of the attackers, be they Collectors or not. Now, while it doesn't look like there whoever hit the colony left any surprises behind, Freedom's Progress does have a large complement of LOKI mechs to serve as security. If they've been activated, they will treat you as hostiles, so obviously, respond accordingly."

"Can they be shut down?" Tali asked.

"Not all of them," Shepard answered, "at least not without access to the main control systems. You could arguably hack them one by one, but it'd probably be faster just to shoot them. We can worry about data recovery later."

"Roger that."

Shepard deactivated the projection and lowered her arm.

"The moment any team finds something, notify the others and we'll all converge. Move out."

The quarians exchanged looks before setting off, with Tali bringing up the rear. As she passed Shepard, she offered another apologetic nod to the colonel.

"Do you think they'll actually stick with the plan, ma'am?" Jacob asked once the quarians were out of earshot, beating Miranda to the punch and likely phrasing it a bit more tactfully.

"I trust Tali to keep me in the loop even if Prazza tries to go cowboy on us," Shepard responded. "Besides, the Alpha shelter is the one where the emergency controls are supposed to be set up. If the mechs are active, that should mean survivors managed to get there."

While she was not being overtly obstructive to the quarians, it was clear Shepard was not giving them free reign either. For the moment, that seemed to satisfy her squad mates.

"Alright, let's get going."

As a moderately sized colony, Freedom's Progress sprawled a bit, which was one reason multiple shelters were necessary in the first place. The place felt even bigger due to the relative emptiness of its streets, even the hum of machinery added an ambiance that made it not completely quiet. With her suite of sensors and backed up by probes deployed by the _Normandy_, Shepard was able to get a pretty good look at the colony's layout and even track the quarian teams as they progressed. There was minimal chatter on the radio, probably Prazza's attempt to cut Shepard out of the loop, but for now Shepard was prepared to let them do their own thing.

A beep indicated a moving contact and Shepard raised her rifle in response. Jacob and Miranda followed suit, and out into their field of view trudged a skeletal bipedal mech. Shepard did not even wait for it to notice them before blowing its head off with a single burst.

"All fireteams be advised, mechs are active," Shepard warned over the radio. "Tali, what do you have for anti-armor, over?"

"Just a missile launcher or two," Tali answered. "We're not geared for a heavy fight."

"Acknowledged. If you run into any heavy mechs, signal for help."

"Will do, Colonel."

"You expecting we'd do better, Colonel?" Jacob asked.

"What, with three biotics and my rifle? I'm sure we could take out a heavy mech or three."

The fireteam would probably need to get a bit creative, but neither of the other two disagreed with Shepard as they pressed onward. It was not long before shots in the distance could be heard. No one called for help, and from her overhead view Shepard could see the quarian marines easily taking down the light mechs that crossed their paths. At least it looked as if they were putting to good use their expertise in taking out robotic enemies.

"Fast moving contacts detected," Shepard announced over the radio, "likely aerial drones."

"Roger that, Colonel." Again it was Tali sending back the acknowledgment.

"And looks like we've got incoming of our own," Shepard said as she watched three contacts vector towards their position.

"How do you propose we deal with them, Colonel?" Miranda asked. "Seeing the somewhat limited range of some of our weapons."

Shepard glanced over at Jacob. "Well Taylor, want to try proving your shotgun's worth?"

Jacob snorted. "Yeah, no, it might have more range than a normal shotgun, but it's still a shotgun, ma'am."

To that Shepard gave a chuckle of her own. "Fair enough. How far out do you two think you can hit something with a stasis?"

The two immediately understood the colonel's intent.

"Just say the word," Jacob said confidently.

"Bogies Alpha and Bravo, hit them once in range," Shepard said, marking the targets. "I'll take care of Charlie."

The trio quickly found what cover they did, no point in advertising themselves too openly as targets after all. The whine of the drones' engines grew louder as they approached, and then quieted abruptly as Miranda and Jacob peeked out. Two of the drones began a precipitous drop before slamming into the ground, while the third continued streaking ahead for a few moments longer. That changed as a burst of rifle file punctured its thin frame and a smokey trail careened into the ground, adding a third crater.

"Easy-peasy," Jacob declared.

After doing a quick scan of the vicinity to make sure there were no further threats, Shepard pointed towards one of the hab modules.

"Through there, we can cut over to the shelter."

No further mechs emerged to impede their progress so the squad made good time, for all the good that did as they approached the wide open blast doors.

"Huh," Shepard remarked as she scanned the place.

"Looks like the colonists didn't make it," Jacob said, anger mixed in with regret in his voice.

"Then who activated the mechs?" Miranda asked. "Could it have been the Collectors themselves?"

"It wouldn't fit the pattern," Shepard said, "but we don't have much data to-"

Motion from within the shelter caused Shepard to clamp up and raise her weapon. The return from her sensors marked the approaching contacts as more mechs, these ones quadrupeds. There were three of them as well, a common enough grouping for the FENRIS units that came charging out. The mechs got about ten meters before a burst of gunfire tore through their lightly armored shells. Sparks sizzled from the holes and they tumbled over to a halt.

"Huh, odd," Shepard remarked.

"What's odd?" Miranda asked.

"We've only run into active, intact mechs," Shepard said. "If the colonists had gotten them activated when they were hit, I'd have expected to see at least some of them scrapped." The colonel gave the broken down mech a slight kick. "Or most of them, considering how poorly they seem to work."

Before they could ponder the point further, the radio crackled.

"Colonel," came Tali's voice. "We've just sighted a YMIR mech parked outside of the Bravo shelter. We could use a bit of help here, over."

"Wilco, on our way."

"A YMIR mech," Jacob remarked as they hustled. "Freedom's Progress must have been doing pretty well to afford something like that."

"Let's hope it's the only one," Shepard said.

No further comment arose, likely because no one else wanted to taunt Murphy. The Bravo shelter was unfortunately some distance away, closer to the colony's industrial site than the residential district. While cutting through a few more houses shaved off a bit of time, it was not as if they could instantaneously get there. That meant a window existed wherein something could go wrong, or someone could do something stupid. As it turned it, there were a lot of someones and plenty of stupid to be had.

"Shepard!" Tali called, this time sounding much more frantic. "Prazza's ordered his squad to engage the YMIR! He's trying to break through to the shelter before you get here!"

Shepard wasted only a single breath on an expletive. "Can they take it?"

"With just the rockets we have? No way!"

Little wonder Tali was so panicked. Shepard was also not terribly surprised by the quarian's response, considering her own familiarity with the YMIR's specs. Heavily shielded and armored, it was perhaps the biggest, baddest combat mech produced by a terran company. Indeed its impressive performance was seeing it widely exported even to Council race clients, though how widely it had disseminated out into the Terminus Systems was a more open question. The quarians about to get their asses handed to them at least did not seem to have much familiarity with the mech, otherwise they would have kept their heads down and waited for Shepard. That might not have been the most courageous thing to do, but it would have at least showed some degree of sanity. Loud bangs suddenly sounded, indicating the fighting had started.

Shepard and her squad were already going out in a full sprint, so it was not like they could get there any quicker. Such exertion however did not stop them from preparing their moves for when they did arrive.

"Jacob, Miranda, I want barriers up here and here," Shepard said. "Get the quarians out of the line of fire as quickly as you can."

"Aye Colonel," Jacob immediately acknowledged.

Miranda at least gave a choppy nod, so she was at least not opposed to the colonel's priorities.

"Once the quarians are clear, lock down that mech with whatever you can," Shepard continued. "We need to stop it from moving. I'll keep it distracted until you're ready."

"You won't have long to wait, Colonel," Miranda said, asserting her confidence.

The cannon fire was growing louder.

"Alright, here we go!"

Jumping over a railing, the three came upon a scene of pure carnage. Two quarians were still on the ground, telemetry indicating they had already flatlined, while a few others were either trying to crawl away or hunkering behind whatever meager cover they could find. Tali was fortunately still alive, directing her drones to dance around the YMIR to try and distract it from her wounded compatriots. The drones were however fragile things, and even a glancing hit from the mech's autocannons were enough to take them out.

The blast of electricity that coursed over the mech did a slightly better job attracting its attention, as it began turning about to face its newest opponent. The burst of rifle fire that followed was able to deplete its weakened shields and pound the underlaying armor, but for now they held. While Shepard engaged the YMIR almost singlehandedly, Jacob and Miranda threw up barriers around the wounded quarians and began pulling them away from the fight. Those still on their feet took the opportunity to do likewise, and soon all that could be saved were out of immediate danger at least.

As quickly as they could move however, that still took time, during which Shepard was under immense pressure all by her lonesome. The colonel slid behind some cover actually thick enough to offer protection from the mech's cannons, for the moment, and popped a pair of grenades. They wouldn't do much actual damage, but anything that kept the pressure on and kept the YMIR from being able to cycle its shields was helpful.

A momentary lull in the gunfire was Shepard's signal to toss the grenades, but to also get moving herself. The colonel's intuition was well rewarded as seconds later a missile slammed into her previous cover, turning it into a rain of shrapnel. The mech rose slightly as it stopped bracing and resumed its ponderous march towards Shepard, unfazed by the small blasts that peppered its frame. And then the thing came to an abrupt halt, even as its servos were clearly straining to continue moving.

"Shepard!" Miranda's voice sounded.

Behind the mech, Shepard could see Miranda and Jacob both unleashing their biotics to pin the YMIR. The effort was clearly difficult and there was no telling how much longer they could keep the mech frozen. Hopefully it would be enough, as Shepard shouldered her rifle and began a running charge. A glint of metal flashed in Shepard's hands even as a blue sheen of energy enveloped her form. She was still some distance from the YMIR however when it lurched, finally breaking free of the gravitic grip.

"SHEPARD!"

The cry this time came from Jacob, in a much more panicked tone too. The YMIR angled its autocannon and let loose, and its barrage of fire sliced through what was now empty air. A loud, shrill ring cut through the sound of gunfire, followed by an equally loud but much lower pitched metallic crunch. From a flash of blue light, Shepard careened through the air and managed a hard but still upright landing. The ground around her fractured from both the impact and the waves of gravitic energy she still exuded, the focal point of which was the huntress sword Shepard gripped.

The YMIR shifted, trying to turn around to face Shepard again, but took only a single step before it began toppling over. Sheer lines rippled from its chest across its armor, and then its head fell off outright. The finale came as the ruptures reached the mech's power cells and they detonated in a most spectacular pillar of flames. The fireworks at least made for a pretty backdrop as Shepard sheathed her sword and approached the others.

"No further contacts on sensors," the colonel said nonchalantly. "Casualty count?"

Tali took a moment to gather herself, the quarian a little unsure of what surprised her more, Shepard nearly singlehandedly taking down the YMIR or the colonel's apparent apathy at the achievement.

"Umm, Prazza's KIA, along with a third of the squad," the quarian began as she surveyed the aftermath. "I think I've only got two left still on their feet, the others all took hits and have suit ruptures. I need to get them back to our shuttle to stabilize them as quickly as possible."

"Jacob, give them a hand evacuating the wounded," Shepard ordered. "Miranda and I'll check the shelter."

"Got it, thanks Shepard," Tali said.

As the quarians plus Jacob began tending to the wounded, Shepard and Miranda turned towards the shelter entrance. This one was definitely sealed, and would have required heavy weapons to breach. Fortunately that would not be necessary.

"EDI, see what you can do about this lockout."

"Attempting overrides," the AI responded.

A few seconds passed as the two women waited, then a full minute.

"EDI?" Shepard inquired.

"Standard emergency imperial overrides are not working," EDI answered. "There appears to be a quarian security protocol overlaid on the original terran security matrix."

"Hrmm," Shepard murmured, then activated her radio. "Tali, hate to bug you, but we've got a quarian security lockout augmenting the standard terran security matrix. Do you have any overrides that we could try?"

"A quarian lockout? Just a sec, Colonel, I'll be right over."

"Your squad going to be okay?" Shepard inquired.

"The worst of the wounded have been patched up at least, and Jacob is helping carry them to our shuttle," Tali said even as she closed in. "They'll keep. If Veetor's still alive, he'll need my help much more than the others."

"Fair enough," Shepard said, giving the quarian a nod as she arrived.

"This should just take a moment," Tali said as she began working her omnitool. "Umm, you have a new AI partner, Shepard?"

"Ah, yes. EDI, this is Tali'Zorah?" Shepard began.

"Vas Neema," Tali helped fill in. "Tali'Zorah vas Neema. It's nice meeting you, EDI."

Shepard flashed the girl a slight smile. She had come a long way since her initial wariness of Artemis.

"The pleasure is all mine, Tali'Zorah," EDI responded. "Will you be needing any assistance with the overrides?"

"If you could take care of the terran security protocols, I'll take down the quarian ones."

"Understood, awaiting your input."

Despite having only more or less met, the two began working together in remarkable synchronicity. In under a minute, the sound of locks disengaging could be heard and the blast door began parting.

"Nicely done both of you," Shepard complimented.

"Thank you, Colonel," Tali said. "And thanks for the help, EDI."

"You are welcome, Tali'Zorah."

"Just Tali is fine," the quarian said. "Any friend of Shepard is a friend of mine. And seeing you're her AI partner, you're probably a few degrees closer than just a friend."

The colonel chuckled at that. "Oh you have no idea. Remember when I told you about my time as a synchronizer going through puberty?"

"Yes," Tali said dryly, "and it's still too much information."

The moment of levity passed as the doors widened enough for the trio to squeeze through. The darkened interior revealed little, at least until the lights mounted upon the guns flicked on. Stepping in, Shepard took the lead and swept the area.

"Clear," she declared.

The immediate entrance into the bunker revealed nothing, not terribly surprising since anyone hiding would naturally seek shelter deeper. At least there were no more mechs waiting to jump them either, or any other hostiles. The silence broken by their footsteps was not so still however that a faint hum escaped their notice. A hum, and an even softer whimpering that was growing louder.

"Contact," Shepard said quietly. "Multiple contacts. Stay sharp, but keep your trigger finger in check. I don't want any colonists getting shot by us."

"Roger that, Colonel," Miranda said.

Whimpering turned into sobbing, and the reason why became clear enough as the trio entered into the main shelter room. Inside, huddled together were a half dozen kids, fear reflected in their eyes as they winced at the light shone upon them. Lowering the intensity, Shepard slowly approached.

"It's alright," she said. "We're here to help."

The children exchanged glances amongst each other, before the oldest looking one rose slightly. She could not have been more than six or seven, and crouched down as she was she looked even smaller. The reason why she did not rise further became evident as light was cast upon her stained hands. Tali inhaled sharply, and even Miranda winced. Lying against the wall, surrounded by the children, was a suited quarian. The hands pressed against his suit were doing so to keep pressure on a wound, to keep him from bleeding out. Even so, there had only been so much the children could have done without training or proper medical equipment. But what they had done, it had been just enough.

"He's still alive," Shepard said as she registered the wounded quarian's body temperature.

That was all the prompting Tali needed as she rushed over to her fellow quarian's side.

"Hang in there, Veetor," she pleaded, breaking out her first aid kit and getting right to work.

The girl keeping pressure on the wound let go, her motions stiff as she was finally able to relax her arms. She stared down at Veetor as Tali examined the wound and worked to properly seal it, an emptiness to her eyes.

"Hey," Shepard said, kneeling to be level with the girl's gaze. "You did good." She caressed the girl's head gently. "You did good."

The girl stared back at Shepard for a few moments, before tears leaked out from her eyes. She sniffed once, twice, and then the floodgates opened as the storm of emotions boiled over. As the girl cried, Shepard took her into her arms and gave her as comfortable a hug as she could manage in the armor. The other children also began crying, finally having an outlet for all the pent-up stress that they had experienced. Miranda was soon right there with Shepard, trying to offer some measure of comfort to the children. To the orphans, for that was what they had become this past day. But they were at least here, they had at least escaped whatever horrid fate that the Collectors would have otherwise subjected them to.

"W-wha?" a weak voice sounded.

Looking over even as she held onto the girl, Shepard saw the wounded quarian stir.

"Veetor?" Tali said. "It's alright. You're alright now."

"Wh-who?"

"It's me, Tali. Remember? We spoke before you left on your Pilgrimage."

"Tali," Veetor murmured. "The-the others. I tried, tried to stop them. Tried to turn on the mechs. But, took too long. Couldn't get to main controls, had to hotwire controls here." A deep wheeze sounded. "Wasn't fast enough. Had to seal the bunker. Had to-all those people." Now a sob. "All my friends, they took all my friends."

"You did everything you could," Shepard spoke, softly but firmly. "You saved these children with what you did. And for that you're a hero. You hear me, Veetor? You're a hero."

Veetor did not stop crying, but he did not try to deny Shepard's words either. Eventually he faded into unconsciousness again, Tali having administered a sedative and painkiller so she could continue stabilizing him. Leaving Tali to her work, Shepard rose, even as she continued cradling the girl that refused to let her go.

Off to the side in the room was a somewhat mangled console, obviously what Veetor had tried to hotwire and turn into a second command unit for the colony's mechs. Its displays were still working however, and Shepard watched intently the recording that was looping. One moment, all was quiet throughout the colony. The next, people scrambling to flee from something, and then one by one all froze up as if they were immobile statues. Finally, into the field of view of the camera stepped forms that Shepard had never seen before.

They looked insectoid, what with the angled arrangement of the two pair of eyes and the bulbous, tapered head. Then there was their orangish, chitinous exoskeleton. Despite their feral appearance, these creatures were obviously capable of higher-level coordination, as seen by their organized sweep over the colony along with their employment of various tools that shared in their chitinous aesthetic. There was even one creature that appeared to be a leader unit of sorts, visibly less bulky than the others and pointing in the manner that implied it was issuing orders. All this and more the recordings revealed, which meant despite the heavy, heavy cost, this mission could be considered a success. Yes, over a thousand innocent colonists had been lost. But now, they had solid proof that the force behind the disappearances was a physical, concrete one. And with a face to the enemy, they also knew who to kill.

* * *

While the _Normandy_ did not possess a proper forensics team, there were enough crewmembers with comparable skills that they were able to do a passable sweep of Freedom's Progress and find additional actionable intel. Case in point, the inert insectoid probe held inside of a well shielded stasis container that Shepard was looking at.

"How many of these did the team find?" she asked.

"Just the six," Miranda answered, also regarding the container. "And only because they had gotten stuck inside of the bravo bunker's outer section after Veetor managed to seal the place up."

"Looks like we owe him another one," Shepard said as she straightened. "EDI, what can you tell us about these, things?"

"Scans indicate a biomechanical construct modeled after common insectoid physiology," EDI said. "It appears to carry a small biotic charge that produces a stasis field when discharged. That field is likely what allowed the Collectors to completely immobilize the colonists and prevent them from calling for help."

"So the Collectors deploy swarms of these things first, stop everyone in their tracks, then sweep through to pick everyone up and clean out any evidence of their presence," Shepard said. "Clever bastards, I'll give them that much." The colonel took a deep breath. "So, how do we defend against these things?"

"The data suggests some sort of biotic field would be able to counteract the initial discharge," EDI said, "but I do not have enough data to extrapolate a solution in further detail."

"Meaning we need actual specialists to look into the matter," Shepard said, looking around the lab. "Someone that can make use of the facilities here." Then to Miranda. "Still no luck finding someone like that?"

"There are a few promising candidates, but due to the nature of their background tracking some of them down to make an offer is proving difficult," Miranda said. "We may have to go find them ourselves."

"If that's what it takes," Shepard said. "In the meantime, I want these things kept on ice. The last thing we need is any of these activating and messing with either the crew or the ship."

"Agreed," Miranda said.

Before another topic could rear its head, the door to the lab slid open and the pitter-patter of small feet sounded.

"Angie!" Kelly called out to no avail.

The girl raced through the door and upon sighting Shepard immediately rushed over to latch onto the colonel.

"I'm sorry Colonel," Kelly said, right on the girl's heels, "but she got fidgety and ran off to find you."

"That's alright," Shepard said, picking the girl up and cradling her in her arms. "We were just wrapping up here, right Miranda?"

The other woman nodded. "We'll continue later, Colonel."

And took her leave. For that matter Shepard and Kelly did not linger in the lab either and the two left, with the girl resting her head on Shepard's shoulder. All of the surviving children had been brought aboard the _Normandy_, and though the ship was hardly equipped to serve as a daycare, the crew had pulled out all the stops to try to make the children comfortable. That started with a hot meal and bath before they were all tucked away in Shepard's bed, the largest one aboard ship, and Kelly had been keeping a watchful eye on them all throughout, at least until she had come here chasing after one girl in particular.

"Where are the others?" Shepard asked.

"Down in the mess hall," Kelly answered. "Gardner's looking after them. He really is quite good with kids."

"Not too surprised," Shepard said, then to the girl in her arms. "C'mon, let's get you back with the others, Angie."

The girl in question responded by tightening her grip on Shepard, making clear what she thought of that. Kelly chuckled lightly.

"Looks like she's gotten quite attached to you, Colonel."

"So it seems," Shepard said, giving the girl a comforting pat on the back. "This is only going to make things harder, though."

"Yes," Kelly agreed with a tinge of sadness. "Yes, it will."

The children could not obviously stay aboard the _Normandy_, they would have to be dropped off at a station and given into the care of the authorities. They would be well taken care of, physically that was, that much Shepard could assure with her connections to the crown. But emotionally, the sense of security that the children were obviously drawing from their rescuers was going to be taken from them once they parted ways. And that, inevitably, was going to cause some hurt all by itself. Until then, Shepard was prepared to do what she could to help soothe the hurt that already throbbed within all the children.

"Colonel, the _Espectus'_ captain wishes to speak with you."

If only the rest of the universe would deign to accommodate her.

"I'll take it at my station," Shepard said, diverting from the elevator with Angie still in her arms.

When she reached the station, she crouched down and slowly unwrapped the girl's arms. There was a stubborn look in Angie's eyes, but Shepard did not relent, not completely at least.

"You can stay with me," she said, "but I need to take this call, alright?"

Angie gave a quick nod. Satisfied that she would behave, Shepard straightened and let the girl lean against her leg. With a flick of her hand, the colonel brought up the channel onto her display.

"Captain Bentus," Shepard greeted.

"Colonel Shepard," the quarian responded. "My ship has completed preparations for departure. I just wanted to pass on my gratitude for the assistance you lent groundside, and my regret that things turned out the way they did."

In fact Bentus was being very reasonable, considering the fatalities and multiple wounded his marine complement suffered. That he was mature enough to not ascribe blame to Shepard spoke well of him, as a person and as an officer.

"I won't pretend I'm happy with how things went either, Captain," Shepard said. "But I do appreciate your understanding." The colonel tilted her head. "Is Veetor doing okay?"

"We have him stabilized," Bentus assured her, "along with the other marines that you helped save. Once we get them back to the fleet they'll be able to get more comprehensive treatment. Likely aboard the _Nightingale_ herself, actually."

To that Shepard cracked a slight smile. "I'm glad that ship seems to be serving your people well."

"That it has," Bentus agreed, before pausing a beat himself. "A word of caution, Colonel. Tali'Zorah has always spoken highly of you, and you have doubtlessly acted as a friend to my people in the past. But the colors you wear, there have been others wearing the same whom have sought to harm the Migrant Fleet."

"So I've been finding out," Shepard said. "I won't ask you to make any allowances for anyone that does try to harm the Migrant Fleet, but I also ask that you not just write off someone because of the colors they wear."

"If I were to extend the benefit of the doubt to anyone in those colors, you'd be the one," Bentus said.

A shame Prazza had not been willing to do the same, otherwise the quarian lieutenant might still be alive now.

"Before we depart, Tali'Zorah also wished to have a few words with you," Bentus said. "Until we meet again, Colonel Shepard, keelah se'lai."

The channel switched, replacing one quarian with another.

"Shepard," Tali greeted.

"Hey. How you holding up?"

"Could be worse," Tali said frankly. "I'm sorry things went the way they did down there, Colonel."

"No reason to blame yourself over someone else's mistakes, Tali," Shepard tried to assure her. "At least we managed to do some good down there."

Tali sighed. "It isn't easy, is it? Actually being responsible for the lives of others instead of just being the one following orders like on my Pilgrimage."

"And it never will be," Shepard stated. "But don't let that pressure crush you, Tali. Use it to sharpen yourself into a better leader."

"Yeah," the quarian nodded. "Yeah, I'll do that. Thanks, Shepard. Somehow you always keep making sense."

The colonel chuckled. "Of course I do. Incidentally, I don't suppose your available for another job with me?"

The suddenness of the offer seemed take Tali aback as the quarian took a few moments to muster a response.

"I, don't think so. At least, not right now. Sorry, Shepard, but as a full-fledged member of the flotilla, I have a lot more responsibilities and expectations, so I can't just go harrowing off without warning."

"Fair enough," Shepard said. "Do check with your superiors, though. Stopping the Collectors isn't going to be easy, and I want as many trusted eyes watching my back as I can get."

Tali nodded. "I'll see what I can do. And if these Collectors really are Reaper agents, they're also a threat to the flotilla. I'll see if our own network of contacts can turn anything up. We've still got plenty of people on Pilgrimages, after all."

"Thanks, Tali," Shepard said. "And speaking of Pilgrimages, what's going to happen with Veetor's after he's recovered? Is he going to need to go out again?"

"I think he'll get a pass on that," Tali said. "I mean, it's not like he hasn't already proven he's a hard worker, and that he pulled through Freedom's Progress shows he can overcome adversity. The only thing is going to be which captain's willing to take him, since it'll take him some time to fully recover and he probably won't have anything to gift back to the flotilla."

"Ah. Well, in that case," Shepard picked up Angie again so that she was visible on camera. "I'll be passing on word of what Veetor did for us at Freedom's Progress. I expect once the paperwork is all properly filed, he'll be getting a commendation from our ambassador. A little token to let everyone know _we_ acknowledge his heroism."

Tali took a moment to muster a response. "That'll definitely help. Thanks, Shepard."

"It's the least we can do. Good luck, Tali."

"And good hunting, Shepard."

End of Chapter 6

One can rightly presume that the _Normandy's_ crew are now really, really motivated to go find and kill some Collectors.

So this was my version of ME2's opening mission, Freedom's Progress. Much as with the Eden Prime mission, I've tweaked and modified it so that it's not quite by the numbers, even if I didn't diverge quite as heavily. Though to be honest, Freedom's Progress was never going to be a very long mission, since the only thing we're up against is the colony's security mechs. That made it pretty straightforward to get through the main beats and even deal with the fallout.

Let's be honest here, in the games the squad mates aren't actually that much help against the heavy enemies, so it really is just mostly Shepard bringing them down, albeit not as spectacularly.

While Shepard is sterile, she did go through puberty, or at least a form of it, and it was even less pleasant for her than it is for others since her hormonal swings got really messy as she both resynchronized with her implants and they tried to repair the damage that came about from their prior deactivation.

I accidentally screwed up Shepard's counseling log entries. We're actually on entry 7 now. It's been corrected in my master draft, but at this point I'm not going to bother uploading new versions.

Work has, stabilized, sufficiently that I was able to squeeze a bit more time out to conceptualize and write. It also helped that I had most of this block of the story pretty much mapped out because of how self-contained it is, relatively speaking. Even so, I was able to sneak in some foreshadowing here and there in preparation for future chapters.

Well, things seem to have gone to hell with remarkable rapidity. If only I could be convinced the authorities at the federal level possess the competency to not bungle the response. Bloody idiots. Anyway, stay safe, all of you, and listen to the advice from the actual qualified health experts. And please stop panic buying all of the toilet paper, the rest of us still need to wipe our asses as well.


	8. Chapter 7

_I was the star player on my high school soccer team. There weren't a lot of iuvenilis running around those days. Still aren't, for that matter. There were even a few parents on opposing teams that complained about how I had an unfair advantage. Said that my implants amounted to me being on steroids and it was like I was cheating. The regional authority that manages high school games eventually ruled in favor of me, pointing out that there was no rule barring people possessing innate advantages from participating, and that excluding me based on my iuvenilis status would have been discriminatory._

_I've never really understood parents that had that sort of mentality. Or rather, mentality is a bad word. I suppose insecurity is more accurate. They want their kid to succeed, to achieve things. But the moment their kid runs into an obstacle, some sort of adversity or setback, their immediate reaction is to try and jump in and throw around their own weight to clear a path. As if they have no confidence that their kid is good enough to do it themselves, or even if they fail, that they wouldn't learn something important from it. Something as basic as knowing how to pick yourself back up to try again. I never understood it, and frankly I can't even work up any pity for those parents. The kids, sure, since they're being robbed of chances to grow and improve. The parents? They should damn well know better._

_There was actually one other iuvenilis in my age bracket back on Earth that played soccer. She was a goalie though, instead of a forward like me. She was also in a different region, so we only ever met up when our teams ended up going head to head during interregional championships. Not once did I ever manage to score on her. It was always someone else on my team, someone that I helped set up the shot for. And frankly? I'm more proud of enabling my teammates to do that than if I had ever managed to do it myself._

_Why do I call the game soccer when I didn't actually live in one of the American provinces that uses football for something else? Well, Vancouver is pretty close to one of those provinces, and also because it twerked the European players so much whenever we went to kick their asses at soccer._

_-Evangeline Shepard, Mandatory Counseling Log 008_

Chapter 7

Vitai lampada tradunt

The tables lowered into the floor and the lights dimmed as the conference room entered lockdown mode and the QEC was activated. The Quantum Entanglement Communicator was a terran development, one that many humans were more than a bit surprised the earlier spacefaring races had not come up with an equivalent of centuries ago, seeing as its underlying principles were, while somewhat esoteric physics, hardly unknown to the wider galaxy. At a basic level, QECs operated under the principle of using entangled particles to facilitate the distribution of randomly generated secure keys.

These keys were then used to encrypt the actual messages, which were transmitted using standard communications buoys. Security was guaranteed by the brevity of the packets each one-use key was responsible for, and the fact that attempting to eavesdrop on the quantum state that served as keys would alter it, alerting the users to such intrusions. While the entire system was supposed to be capable of providing theoretically secure communications between two endpoints, it did nothing to protect eavesdropping at those endpoints, hence the physical security measures one needed to take when using the system.

The projector at the center of the room lit up and Shepard found herself face-to-face, in a manner of speaking, with the Illusive Man once more. As always, the man had a cigarette in his hand and took a deep puff before speaking.

"Congratulations are in order, Colonel," he began. "Your first deployment and you've already found conclusive evidence of Collector involvement with the colony abductions. It seems my faith in your abilities was not misplaced."

"We've one piece of the puzzle," Shepard responded, "but we're far from actually being able to stop the Collectors."

"Agreed," the Illusive Man said. "And in that vein, we've found a potential lead for you to pursue."

The colonel narrowed her eyes. "Oh?"

Another projection appeared, this one of a krogan.

"Warlord Okeer is a krogan extremist as well as a brilliant geneticist. He is however reviled by his own people, for having traded other krogans to the Collectors for examples of their biotechnology."

"Ah," Shepard said. "So he would have some familiarity with Collector tech, and might be able to figure out some way of counteracting them."

"That is the hope," the Illusive Man said, taking another drag of his cigarette. "Convincing him to cooperate will likely take some doing, but I'm sure that's not beyond your ample means."

"We'll see," Shepard said. "So where is he?"

"He's in the Imir System, in the Eagle Nebula. A planet called Korlus."

"Hmm, the garbage scow world."

"An apt enough label. Our intelligence indicates that Okeer is working with the Blue Suns, on a cloning operation. The Blue Suns seem to have taken a page from Saren's playbook and are trying to create their own army of krogans."

"Pretty ambitious for a bunch of mercs," Shepard remarked. "I take it they haven't had much success seeing as I haven't heard a thing about it through regular channels?"

"Growing a clone is a straightforward enough proposition," the Illusive Man said, in a tone that implied some firsthand awareness of the relative difficulty. "Molding the resulting specimen into something that can be employed, or controlled, is another matter entirely, especially for a species as volatile as the krogans."

"Figures." Shepard then pursed her lips. "The quickest way to the Eagle Nebula would be through Council controlled space. Are there going to be any problems taking the _Normandy_ through there?"

"The _Normandy's_ credentials should be sufficient to grant you unimpeded passage," the Illusive Man stated.

"Then how exactly did the quarians of all people cop onto the fact that Cord-Hislop is used as a cover?"

"A rogue agent, and I very much mean the former, exceeded his orders in an intelligence gathering operation on the Migrant Fleet," the Illusive Man admitted. "He was supposed to gain access to the flotilla's communications protocols, but decided to take it upon himself to also try and gain access to the flotilla's internal security protocols. Needless to say, he failed on both counts, and drew the quarians' attention to Cerberus."

Shepard folded her arms as she met the Illusive Man's gaze. "You know, at a certain point, if the number of rogue operatives outnumbers those that actually obey orders, it might be time to rethink your recruiting standards."

"The risks involved in what Cerberus does are often beyond what the average person can manage," the Illusive man responded. "Anyone that is capable of such daring will always carry with them some risk of eventually overextending themselves. By employing them in the first place, Cerberus also assumes the responsibility of cleaning up after them, as we did in this case."

"And as I'm sure you're also prepared to do if I, overstep?"

"That is a given, Colonel. Or did you think us that naïve?"

"No, just making sure the air is clear between us."

The Illusive Man exhaled. "While it is a certainty that there are things I choose not to reveal to you, Colonel, I also have no reason to not be anything but entirely forthright about things that impact your mission. When it comes to stopping the Collectors, and by extension the Reapers, we are entirely on the same page, that I assure you."

"To the extent that your goal is to stop the Collectors, that I can believe," Shepard said. "But let's not pretend that that's where your goals actually end."

The edge of the Illusive Man's lips quirked upward. "I see that I was also correct in surmising you possess a degree of vision, Colonel. I look forward to seeing how wide that vision is."

The projection disappeared, leaving Shepard alone in the room once more. The colonel stared at the empty space for a moment longer before snorting.

"Yeah, I bet you are."

* * *

While Arcturus may not have been where the _Normandy_ SR2 had been birthed, the frigate did not look out of place amongst the many other ships docked in the various berths. Perhaps the only major difference was that the particular berth the frigate now rested in was not in the section reserved for formally commissioned naval vessels, and instead was one nominally for commercially flagged ships. Regardless of how dubious it might be to claim that the _Normandy_ was a civilian vessel, the legal fiction did need to be upheld to some degree lest all plausible deniability get thrown out the airlock.

Still, Arcturus Station was very much within the navy's domain, so even being berthed in a nominally civilian section did not preclude being greeted by a naval party upon disembarking, especially when said party had been explicitly requested. As Shepard carried Angie and was trailed by the other children, the team of corpsmen and nurses came to attention.

"Colonel Shepard," the lead officer greeted. "We're here to take the children into custody."

Shepard nodded, but when she tried to put Angie down the girl resolutely refused to let go.

"Angie, we talked about this," Shepard said gently.

The girl shook her head, giving Shepard a pleading look in the process.

"Sorry kiddo, but that look's not going to work this time," Shepard said even as she ruffled the girl's hair. "I have a job to do out there, and that job includes helping keep all of you safe. It's a job that I can't do if you're there with me."

The plaintive look on Angie's face took on a more hurt one, as if asking if Shepard was saying she was in the way. To that Shepard gave a firm nod, even as she gave the girl a squeeze.

"We can't all get what we want, Angie. And we can't stop the hurt all the time. I'm not going to tell you to be strong, or promise you we'll see each other again to convince you to go. You're too smart for that, and you're already plenty strong for what comes next. But that's still not enough to let you follow in my footsteps, Angie. And those footsteps aren't ones you should be following anyway. So, use that strength and those smarts, to do better like I know you can. Okay?"

Despite the clear effort she made to hold back her tears, eventually a few drops leaked from Angie's eyes. Nonetheless, she gave an answer.

"Okay."

The single word came softly, but to Shepard it rang crystal clear.

"So that's what you sound like," the colonel said with a smile. "Now don't go losing that voice again, alright? I'll want to hear it again when I do come back."

There was a certain strain to it, but Angie did manage a smile as she nodded. Having settled things as best as could be done, Shepard rose and faced the nurse.

"Take care of her for me, alright?"

"My word, Colonel. We'll see that all of them are well cared for."

The other woman leaned forward and extended a hand, and after one last look at Shepard, Angie reluctantly released the colonel's and took it. One by one the other children were either picked up or similarly taken hold of and led off. The _Normandy_ crew remained where they were, watching until they disappeared from the concourse.

"Hope they'll be okay," Rupert murmured.

"They will be," Shepard stated. "I've some personal assurances of it."

Whatever the official disapproval that Shepard might be under, her personal network was still such that she could call in various favors and get special attention paid to on various matters. While the imperial government was certainly not stingy in helping children orphaned by pirate or slaver attacks, there was always ways more could be done if additional resources or effort was allocated.

"Do you think you will drop in later to see them?" Miranda asked.

Shepard tilted her head a bit. "We'll have to see. Maybe after the Collector threat is dealt with."

And they survived the experience, went the unstated qualifier.

"I think she'd like that quite a bit," Miranda said. "And you seem to have a ways with children."

To that the colonel snorted. "A bit wasted on me."

To that Miranda said nothing, though the look she gave Shepard had a tinge of genuine sympathy. The colonel however did not notice, as it was gone by the time she turned about to return to the ship.

"Joker, we ready to head out?"

"Just waiting for everyone to get back aboard, ma'am," the pilot responded.

"Best speed to Korlus then," Shepard ordered as they entered the airlock. "I don't want Okeer getting shanked while we're still in transit."

A chuckle sounded from Rupert. "Would that even do anything to a krogan?"

"Might get him mad enough that they have to break out the heavy weapons," Shepard said. "Besides, with how old he is he might keel over from all the pollution in the air."

The bark of laughter from Rupert only elicited an eyeroll from Miranda.

"I doubt the atmosphere will be too much of an impediment to our operation, Colonel," Miranda said dryly. "Or are you expecting the Blue Suns to be especially vulnerable to wit and hot air?"

"Well if the mercs turn out to be less troublesome than Korlus' government, that won't be the first," Shepard said. "I presume we want to get in and out without the planetary government noticing?"

"That would be preferable," said Miranda as they entered the _Normandy's_ main deck. "Korlus is in the Terminus Systems, and its government can be counted on to be uncooperative regarding anything that touches upon Council or imperial interests."

"We could always just bribe them," Shepard said jokingly.

"Perhaps, but I would leave justifying that particular line item to you, Colonel, seeing as you are the ranking command authority for this operation."

The colonel chuckled. "Fair enough. We'll try the silent, subtle approach first. And if that doesn't work, loud is always any option."

* * *

A deeply unamused expression was on Shepard's face as she looked down at the tactical projection.

"Well, so much for silent and subtle," she remarked.

"This is, less than ideal," Miranda agreed.

Displayed on the main projector was an overhead view of the Blue Suns compound where Okeer was supposed to be ensconced with his work. That compound was presently up in flames in several locations, with mercs fighting what looked to be a rampaging horde of krogans. About the only good news was that the planetary authorities were either unaware of the raging battle or had elected to leave well enough alone and let the Blue Suns deal with their little problem themselves.

"EDI, any indication that Okeer is still alive down there?" Shepard asked.

"The Blue Suns commander is still actively calling for his head, so it may be presumed that the warlord yet lives," came the AI's response.

"Fair enough," Shepard said. "What sort of anti-air are we looking at?"

"A standard AA battery tied into the base's sensor grid," EDI answered. "Emissions from the grid have however noticeably decreased, indicating that it is operating at minimal readiness. Insertion by the Kodiak should encounter minimal opposition in the air."

The shuttles carried by the _Normandy_ were equipped with the same stealth technology as the frigate herself, but flight in atmosphere created more telltales than in a vacuum. While they did not provide quite a large enough signature for AA batteries to lock onto, they could still provide sufficient warning to the groundside defenders that they could muster a credible response. With the state that this base was in though, that would probably be too much for the mercs to come up with, busy as they were already.

"Alright, we drop in ten," Shepard said. "I still want that AA battery neutralized before we enter its range though. Joker, plot an attack run to cover our approach."

"Aye ma'am."

* * *

The ride down in the shuttle was relatively uneventful, some minor turbulence aside. Shepard spent most of it carefully going over the scans the _Normandy_ had taken of the base.

"The mercs are going to notice a shuttle dropping on their heads even with the current Charlie Foxtrot," Shepard noted. "We'll put down here, outside of their immediate perimeter and where the fighting seems the lightest, then cut our way through to what appears to be the main lab."

"And the only things in our way are an army of desperate mercs and bloodthirsty krogans," Jacob said dryly.

"Any idea why the krogans are attacking the mercenaries?" Miranda inquired.

"The Suns probably couldn't control them in the first place," Shepard said as she watched one of the engagements. "Based off these numbers though, they must've been cranking out a lot of clones."

"They must've dropped a pretty penny bankrolling all this," Jacob said. "Where'd a merc company even come up with that sorta money?"

"The Blue Suns are one of the biggest PMCs in the business," Shepard stated. "They're also supposed to be one of the most professional. That they might have the money isn't that surprising, what is surprising is them taking a gamble like this to begin with. The risks seem way out of line for the supposed gain."

"That is certainly a point," Miranda agreed. "Are you suggesting some third party is backing the Suns?"

"At this point it's just idle speculation," Shepard said. "Maybe there's some data we might recover that'll shed more light, but priority is extracting Okeer."

"What happens if he doesn't want to be extracted?" Jacob asked.

The two women looked over at him.

"Hey, it could happen," the former marine said.

"If the carrot of pulling him out of this fire doesn't work," Shepard responded, "we'll just have to try a really big stick."

Distant explosions sounded and a beep indicated what had been hit.

"Looks like the AA battery is out," Shepard said.

"Ma'am, we're coming up on the LZ," Thomas informed them.

"Right on time too," the colonel said with satisfaction.

The others tightened their grip as the shuttle began shuddering harder. The dampeners might have helped with some of the acceleration and deceleration, but they were still coming in hard and fast enough that some bled through.

"Touchdown!"

The doors slid open and the trio dropped out, guns at the ready in case any surprises popped up. The air above was thick with smoke with a slight orange glow from the fires below. Rather incorrigibly however, a voice was booming from some loudspeakers that were somehow still working.

"There is only one measure of success: kill or be killed! Perfection is your goal!" a feminine voice declared.

"What the hell?" Jacob murmured.

"Broadcasting propaganda over loudspeakers?" Miranda remarked. "Charming."

"Seems a bit wasted," Shepard said. "That or someone is in love with their own voice."

The trio moved along the wreckage of ships and other debris. Bangs and crashes echoed in the distance, but thus far the squad encountered no opposition to their progress.

"Being hired is merely the beginning. You must earn your place in the mighty army we are building."

Aside from the intermittent questionable motivational blurbs being played. As they rounded a corner built from some slab of hull, the first contacts came into view.

"Observation post," Jacob noted. "I make three. They don't see us yet."

"No kinetic barriers," Shepard said. "Jacob, can you pull them out of cover?"

"Not all of them," came the response. "Not standing close enough together."

"Alright, grab target designate alpha on my mark. Miranda, detonate with an overload once he's in the open." Shepard swapped out and unfolded her sniper rifle. "Mark."

The sound of the shot easily masked out the grunt of effort from Jacob, though not the blast that came with the exploding biotic energy from Miranda's follow-up. The body spent another moment or so floating limply in the air before dropping atop the other corpse. The surviving merc stumbled back, clearly shaken by the sudden and near simultaneous kills of his squad mates. He was not given much time to recover however as Shepard shifted her aim and squeezed the trigger. The shot did not kill him outright, the merc's armor just barely saving him from getting his chest blown open. It did however leave him crumpled on the ground with a trail of red leaking.

"Weapons hold," Shepard said, switching back to her assault rifle. "Let's see how talkative this guy is."

The others held their fire, but kept weapons trained on the man just in case.

"Shit, shit, shit!" the merc said, popping off his helmet and gasping for air. "I'm gonna-son of a bitch!"

He rolled over, pressing a hand against the wound to try to keep more blood from spilling, then looked up at the approaching squad.

"I knew it wasn't berserkers," he hissed. "Not at range. You're mercs. Or imperials. Well I'm not telling you shit!"

Shepard crouched down, eyebrow raised, not that the merc could see through her opaque visor. "The way I see it, you're bleeding out in the dirt here and we're the only ones with any medigel close enough to help. Or would you prefer we put an end to your bleeding in a more permanent fashion?"

One could easily be forgiven for thinking the merc couldn't look more scared. Shepard did seem to have that effect on people she didn't like.

"Son of a, alright. Fine, fine! But I don't know anything, I'm just a grunt. I shoot at the overflow like I'm told to. The old krogan up there, he's really been cleaning house lately. Jedore hired him to make her an army, but the krogan he creates are insane, so we use them for live ammo training. It's all crap, I don't get paid enough to goddamn bleed out!"

"If you say so," Shepard said as she administered just enough medigel to stem the bleeding. She was not gentle.

"OWW! Goddamn it, are you trying to kill me!?"

"If I were, that'd at least have solved your bleed-out problem before it began," Shepard stated.

The headset crackled as a voice sounded over the merc's radio.

"Outpost 4, what's your status? Did that krogan pack reach your position?"

The man looked up at Shepard nervously, knowing if he tried to answer he was a dead man. But if he didn't answer, that could draw all sorts of unwanted attention this way anyway.

"Tell them the pack's been taken down and that the area's secure," Shepard instructed.

"Uh, outpost 4 here. We managed to bag the bastards. Put up a hell of a fight, but they're down."

"Thank fuck," came the response. "Alright, hang tight until we can figure out how to deal with the rest of this clusterfuck."

The radio went silent.

"There, you see? I'm helping," the merc said.

"Sure," Shepard said dryly. "So this Jedore is the one in charge?"

"Yeah. Crazy bitch. Loves spouting all that bullshit on the speakers, even during the drills. Half the company would shoot them just to get some peace and quiet, but she'd probably flay anyone that tried."

"Sounds like she's real popular," Jacob quipped.

"You have no idea," the merc agreed.

"And that old krogan would be Okeer?" Shepard continued her questioning.

"Uh, yeah. You guys here for him? Well you can have him, he's the reason behind this whole goddamn mess."

The colonel tilted her head. "How."

"What do you mean how? He's the one turning out all these rabid clones!"

"Which you're using as part of life fire drills," Shepard said. "Did that piss Okeer off or something?"

"What? No, I don't think he even cares. He just kept turning out however many clones Jedore asked for. But she couldn't control them, and she's been getting more and more pissed about it. I think they finally had it with each other. One minute I'm in the mess getting chow, the next the alarms are going off about all of the containment barriers being dropped and the berserkers coming through. Bet it was Okeer that did that."

"So where is he now?"

"Beats me. He could be dead for all I know."

Shepard rolled her eyes. "I could beat you, but there wouldn't be much left of you afterwards."

"Whoa, whoa! C'mon! Uh, okay, he's usually holed up on the main lab. It's just past the gauntlet."

"Defenses?"

"Uh, I mean, there was the AA battery, but that blew-wait, that was you guys, wasn't it?"

"Perceptive. Now show some more of that perception with your answers."

"The barriers were supposed to keep the clones at bay, but they're down," the merc said quickly. "We don't have anything else groundside, we're not equipped to be fighting off goddamn commandos."

"Good to know." Shepard straightened. "The bleeding's stopped for now, but you'll probably still want to find a hole to crawl into in case it starts up again." And began walking away.

"Shit, shit," the merc could be heard cursing behind.

"The scare was a nice touch," Miranda complimented.

"I thought so too," Shepard said. "C'mon, let's get to the lab. If things really have gone sideways between this Jedore and Okeer, we can probably leverage that into getting him out of here with us."

The squad hurried along, passing through more of the broken landscape. With the _Normandy_ stealthily maintaining overwatch, Shepard was able to navigate them around most of the firefights spread across the base. Those that they could not evade, they punched straight through with methodical lethality. The fireteams they encountered were relatively well-trained, but that was only in comparison to other mercenary companies and Terminus Systems militaries. Against the likes of Shepard, Miranda, and even Jacob, they were woefully overmatched.

"AHHHHHHHH!"

As one Blue Suns merc demonstrated by screaming for his life while he was sent flying with a biotic pull. The scream was abruptly terminated by the explosion that engulfed him, Shepard having blasted a fragmentation grenade in his face. Literally, given the bloody pulp that used to be a head. The other mercs scrambled for cover, yelling obscenities while trying to call for help. Only the hiss of static answered them however, as Shepard's suit flooded the air with electromagnetic interference.

"Where the fuck's our backup!?" another merc could be heard screaming.

"I got nothing!" came the response. "The radio's dead air!"

"Fuck! Fall back, fall-"

It might not be considered honorable to shoot someone in the back, but honor was for when the shooting stopped. When the bullets were still flying, you took any chance you got lest they ended up inside of you instead of the enemy.

"Blue Suns comms are lighting up," Shepard said in-between bursts of gunfire. "They've figured out that something besides the krogans are hitting their forces."

"What, losing their AA battery didn't clue them in to that already?" Jacob remarked.

"The krogan are your example and your warning! As ferocious as they are, failures are expendable," Jedore's voice boomed over the speakers again.

"They might have, if their commander wasn't wasting so much time spouting drivel," Shepard said.

"Don't suppose you have a way of shutting those speakers off?" Jacob asked. "She's kinda getting on my nerves."

"Suit doesn't output enough power to overload the entire broadcast system," Shepard answered. "But I won't complain about wasted bullets if you decide to shoot the speakers."

One such device was promptly turned into sparking swiss cheese. The two marines glanced over at the shooter.

"What?" Miranda shrugged.

"Keep up the good work, Ms. Lawson," Shepard said with a slight chuckle.

Whatever new awareness the mercs now possessed about Shepard and company's presence did not see any substantial increase in the resistance in their way at least. Indeed as the trio advanced closer to the lab, they caught sight of the first krogan combatant. He was alone, equipped with only a shotgun, a poor weapon indeed for engaging the Blue Suns at the ranges they hid behind. The dead bodies of several other krogan attested to the advantages such range offered, even as others in blue armor marked the proficiency of these berserkers despite the odds.

"Take out the krogan?" Jacob asked.

"Not yet, he's got their attention, so let's make use of that," Shepard said. "Flank left, get closer, and see if we can drag the bastards out from cover."

"Aye ma'am," Jacob said.

The two biotics moved ahead of Shepard, the colonel keeping a wary eye on the krogan to make sure it did not turn around and charge them instead.

"Ready, Colonel!" Jacob called back.

"Hit 'em!"

Again screams sounded as the mercenaries were pulled out from behind their cover, some desperately grabbing on to try and resist the gravitic pull. So distracted however, they were easy prey for Shepard and the others, and seeing as none were even equipped with kinetic barriers, a few good shots were all that was needed to put them down. When the biotic field gave out, a clutter of corpses tumbled over the ramparts onto the ground. That threat dealt with, Shepard looked over at the lone krogan to see what it would do. The hulking berserker spent a moment or two staring at the bodies, and then slowly turned about to face the three humans.

Reflexively, Jacob and Miranda raised their weapons. Shepard however raised a hand, signaling for them to hold fire.

"Steady," she ordered.

The krogan approached, leaning forward so that its head was at chest level with Shepard. The colonel did not flinch or lean away, standing her ground before the lumbering alien. He was wearing fairly rudimentary armor, with a helmet masking his face. The krogan's posture was not one of aggression, but curiosity instead.

"You," he began speaking, "are different. New. You don't smell like this world."

Shepard said nothing, letting the krogan gather his thoughts. He straightened again, now looking down at the woman.

"Seven night cycles, and I have felt only need to kill. But you, something makes me speak."

"He's only a week old?" Miranda murmured in some wonderment.

"They must breed them full-size, ready to fight and kill," Shepard remarked. "That way they don't need to spend time or effort on rearing and training."

"Bred," the krogan spoke again, drawing their attention back, "to kill. No. I kill because my blood and bone tell me to." A rather typical krogan mentality. "But that is not why I was flushed from glass mother."

Glass mother likely referred to the tank he had been grown in. It was rather interesting, in a twisted sort of way, that the krogan remembered his own birth in that manner.

"Survival is what I hear in my head," he continued. "Against the enemy that threatens all my kind. But I failed even before waking. That is what the voice in the water said. That is why I wait here."

There was a certain abstractness to the krogan's words, but they clearly hinted at something far deeper. Indeed the krogan was rather well-spoken for a supposedly uncontrollable berserker.

"You're rather talkative for someone that's only a week old," Shepard said as much.

"There was a scratching sound in my head," the krogan answered the implicit question, showing it was perceptive enough to even pick up on that, "and it became the voice. It taught things I would need: walking, talking, hitting, shooting. Then the voice said I was not perfect and the teaching stopped. And now I am here."

"Here, getting shot at by Jedore's goons?" Jacob remarked.

Shepard flashed a quick glance at the marine, who promptly clamped his mouth shut.

"Jedore," the krogan said. "I know that name. It causes anger." He then tilted his head quizzically, though with the helmet on there was no way to read his expressions. "But also laughter. It is not a name that will be sung when we march." Another beat passed. "I don't know what that means, but I have heard it many times."

Someone obviously did not think too highly of the Blue Suns commander, but considering what they had seen and heard so far Shepard could hardly blame them.

"That voice you heard, was it Okeer?" Shepard asked.

"I heard the voice, but not like now, not with ears. I heard it inside. I called it 'father.' It liked that, but in the end it was disappointed. I am not what it needs me to be."

"Could Okeer be trying to cure the Genophage, using these clones as test subjects for treatments?" Miranda speculated.

"Cure?" the krogan tilted his head. "Cure was never whispered. Survive. Resist. Ignore."

Shepard frowned. Okeer's motives remained opaque with the limited information the clone could provide. What little she could glean however suggested the warlord was a fanatic of sorts, albeit one capable of greater complexity in execution than others of his ilk.

"Did the voice say why it was disappointed?" she asked, seeing if there was anything else they could learn.

"I was not perfect," the krogan answered, sounding almost forlorn.

That was vague enough to be unhelpful but also insightful in its own way into Okeer's mindset. The warlord was clearly obsessed, striving for something that he thought would allow his people to rise again despite the Genophage. While Shepard was not strictly opposed to a krogan resurgence, she was also not foolhardy enough to believe it to be an unconditional good thing. If the krogan were to regain their former standing, it needed to be done under proper leadership instead of bloodthirsty warmongering. Okeer at least did not seem to be in possession of the former, which added yet another reason to secure the warlord.

"Can you show us where the lab is?" Shepard asked the krogan.

"The glass mother," the krogan murmured, then more loudly. "She is up. Past the broken bits, behind many of you fleshy things. I will show you."

The krogan turned around and walked over to a slab of wreckage. With a grunt of effort, he tossed aside a heavy metal plate to create a hole for passage.

"Impressive," Miranda remarked. "And dangerous."

Shepard had some idea of how strong krogans could get, and her sensors could tell her just how much that hunk of metal weighed. This particular krogan was certainly on the higher end of krogan physique, and yet Okeer still considered him imperfect.

"You fleshy things are slow when big things are in your way," the krogan said matter-of-factly.

"From the look of things, there's nothing actually stopping you from running or even fighting your way back into the labs," Shepard said. "Why stay here?"

"I am waiting," the krogan responded. "The voice told me. If they come, I fight. But I will not run, and I will not return."

As Shepard regarded the krogan, she felt a sense of, not pity, almost disappointment. Disappointment at the wasted potential this krogan obviously had, even if he was grown in a tank. He clearly possessed an insightful mind based on how he had answered their questions, and his prowess as a fighter was undeniable. But someone, Okeer, had decided to stunt that potential because he was supposedly not perfect straight out of the tank. That felt so wasteful, so shortsighted. What was to say this krogan could not have become perfect if given a chance?

"The voice may have told you many things," Shepard thus said. "It may have said you weren't perfect. But whether that matters or not is your choice, not his."

With this parting words, Shepard stepped through the gap. The krogan watched as the three fleshy things took their leave, contemplating what he had been heard. Everything he knew had been told to him by the voice. Now another voice spoke different words, different meaning. This new fleshy one had given him the urge to speak. It was also giving him the urge to think.

On the other side of the barrier, the squad hustled towards the lab.

"I trust your rapport with that particular clone won't make you overly hesitant to shoot any others we encounter," Miranda said.

Shepard snorted. "That one wanted to talk, so we talked. If the others want to fight, they've got a fight."

"Good to know, cause I see some up ahead!" Jacob called out.

Not just krogan, the squad was running headlong into a slugfest between a Blue Suns detachment and more of the cloned berserkers. The krogans were making steady progress tearing apart the Blue Suns perimeter, using a combination of sheer numbers and their innate ferocity to overcome the tactical advantages held by the better equipped mercenaries. As Shepard could personally attest to, stopping a blood range fueled krogan charge was not the easiest thing in the world to do. Of course having the krogans charging away from you turned them from a major threat into a handy distraction.

"Code six! Offworld presence!" a Blue Suns merc cried out.

"There's too many for the jamming to get all of them," Shepard said as they traded fire with the mercs.

"Shift fire from the krogan! Hostiles in the compound!"

"They really don't seem to like us," Jacob said.

A distant scream sounded as Shepard cycled her sniper rifle. "Gee, I wonder why."

"We have guests in the compound," Jedore's voice rang out. "If they're not killed immediately, all bonuses will be denied!"

"She's actually broadcasting this live in the middle of a krogan uprising!?" Miranda said incredulously.

"No wonder her troops are doing so shit," Shepard said. "She's too busy mouthing off to actually command them."

"Not like they'd be doing any better from the sounds of it," Jacob added.

The three-way firefight was heating up, as some of the krogans became aware of the new arrivals. Unlike the one they met before, these were fully immersed in their blood rage and knew no distinction between the mercs and Shepard's squad.

"Shift fire to the krogan," Shepard said, giving the exact opposite order that the Blue Suns officer had.

"What about the mercs?" Jacob asked even as he dutifully obeyed.

"On my mark, I'm going to need a barrier large enough to encompass all three of us," Shepard said instead of directly answering. "Think you two can handle it?"

"Easily, Colonel," Miranda assured her.

The seconds ticked by as they continued hosing down the krogans that had veered towards them. Each took a prodigious amount of fire to bring down, and some that should have gone down suddenly found a second wind to rise and charge again. Once they got close enough, Shepard dispensed with the usual shots at the center of mass and went straight for the head. That was arguably made a bit easier by the way krogans were built, but it was still an impressive sight to see bodies topple over with skulls smashed and brains spilling out. Impressive, and just a bit more stomach churning than the usual bloody and gore.

A distant rumbling grew louder and louder, cause some of the combatants to look about in puzzlement. When it grew loud enough to wash out all other sounds on the battlefield, Shepard rolled over to press close to Miranda.

"Mark!"

The biotic threw up a barrier, just as Jacob dove next to the others. The ground trembled, causing Miranda to nearly topple over had Shepard not grabbed onto the other woman to steady her. A whirlwind of sand and dust washed over the barrier, the inside of which was otherwise calm. Nearly a full minute passed before the sandstorm died down enough to see more than a few inches ahead. The smoke lingered though, and through the haze the addition of yet another crater to the landscape could be made out. One that covered the spot right where the Blue Suns contingent had been hunkering down.

"A little more forewarning that you were calling down a kinetic strike would have been appreciated, Colonel," Miranda remarked as she brushed herself off.

"I'll take that under advisement," Shepard said as she surveyed the destruction.

Not only the mercenaries, but the attacking krogans had also been wiped out by the strike. The structural integrity of the rest of the compound did not appear to have been compromised either, and the path was now clear to get to the lab. The cherry on top was the notable absence of a voice blaring over loudspeakers.

"You think that'll get the mercs to back off?" Jacob asked.

"The way Jedore was behaving, she's more inclined to do something overly reckless and stupid," Shepard surmised. "We better make sure we get to Okeer beforehand."

Despite the colonel's concerns, no more mercs appeared to try to impede their path. From the stray radio chatter she could still pick up, it was becoming apparent that whatever Jedore's foul mood and reputation, her subordinates were not eager to call attention to themselves and invite another kinetic strike on their heads. The fact that no one seemed able to determine what was launching those strikes thanks to the _Normandy's_ stealth system only made them even more paranoid.

"Looks like they're trying to fortify inside of the repurposed hull," Shepard said. "Won't be able to hit them from orbit without bringing the entire place down."

"Guess we gotta do it the hard way," Jacob said.

The twists and turns saw the three begin a steady climb upward, leapfrogging from cover to cover. The caution proved wise as gunfire zipped by. Shepard already had her target in her sights and the quick burst shredded the gunman. There were plenty of others however, and at sufficient distance that Miranda and Jacob switched over to their heavy pistols. Leaning out, Shepard's shields flared from the strain of incoming fire, but the colonel took the time to respond in kind before ducking back. Most of the mercs did not possess similar such advantage, and what protection their armor offered was wholly inadequate against Shepard's Saber. Still, for all its stopping power, there was something to be said about having a weapon with a faster rate of fire.

"Jedore does not pay for failure! Do your jobs, I want them dead!"

The speaker broadcasts were back too, louder than ever with the metal walls enclosing the sound.

"She refers to herself in the third person," Shepard said idly amidst the gunfire.

"That woman's not right in the head," Jacob offered his unofficial assessment.

Even being so engaged, Shepard still had the attention to spare to pay attention to the radio intercepts. From them she knew the krogan were pushing hard, that the Blue Suns were getting slowly chewed through thanks to their attention being divided like this, and that Jedore still had some heavy mechs in reserve that she had yet to get desperate enough to employ. Those mechs could prove a problem, especially since Shepard had brought only the one M-920 with her.

The resistance that they were meeting now was already getting heavier. More mercs equipped with kinetic barriers were showing up, along with others armed with rockets and the like. The shields, a combination of Shepard and Miranda's overloads dealt with easily enough. The rockets, anyone with an ounce of field experience would tell you they were best dealt with by keeping them from being fired in the first place. Barring, that, having something really thick between you and the rocket was a very good idea.

"Fucking hell," Jacob said from behind a particularly heavy bulkhead.

"Those look to be fragmentation warheads," Shepard commented. "If they were proper AP, they wouldn't be having so much trouble punching through."

"I'd almost take AP rockets," Jacob said. "Those at least make much smaller booms when they do blow."

With her sensor suite, Shepard did not need to peek around corners to know when the enemy was ducking back into cover. Granted gunfire still greeted her when she leaned out, but a few hits from regular guns was a worthwhile tradeoff for the grenades she tossed in return. Frantic cries could be heard a moment later before getting cut off by another explosion. The rocket soldiers neutralized, Shepard charged out and opened fire on the remaining mercs. Miranda and Jacob were right behind, watching the colonel's flank and tossing out biotics at her beck and call.

"How many more of these guys do the Suns even have?" Jacob groused. "Feels like we've gone through an entire battalion!"

"Two platoons and counting," Shepard gave a more concrete count, which was still a rather lopsided kill ratio considering none of the three had more than a few bumps and bruises. "From the looks of it Jedore can't pull too much else back here without the rest of the perimeter getting overrun by the krogan. She's still not desperate enough to come at us herself, but that'll probably change if we get to Okeer."

"Considering the quality of her command, should we be worried?" Miranda asked.

"Depends on just how many heavy mechs she actually has," was Shepard's response. "Here we are."

The large doors before them was distinct from the others they had encountered in a variety of manners. One was the much heavier armoring and the other the relatively cleaner surface, even if clean was still a stretch too far, outside at least.

"EDI, if you would," Shepard said as she held her omnitool up to a panel.

A few short seconds passed before the door began creaking open.

"I have infiltrated the internal security system," EDI said. "No indications of Blue Suns personnel inside of the lab proper, but I have located Jedore and her retinue."

"Count?" Shepard asked as they walked into the much cleaner interior.

"Aside from Jedore herself, two YMIR mechs and four Blue Suns troopers equipped with kinetic barriers and assault rifles."

"What does Jedore have?"

"She appears to be in possession of a Revenant light machinegun."

"Really?" Shepard drawled.

"Thinking of doing a little trophy hunting, Colonel?" Jacob said.

"You know what they say, pillage, then burn," was the colonel's response.

Miranda on the other hand rolled her eyes but did not verbally chide either of them.

"What about the lab's databanks?" Shepard continued.

"Those systems appear to have been properly air gapped from the security system," EDI answered.

"Well at least they aren't complete idiots," Shepard said. "And Okeer?"

"In the lab behind the door you now stand behind."

"At least we won't have to go far to find him," the colonel said, then glanced at the others. "Weapons hold, even if he takes a shot at us. Objective is to talk him down, and we resort to weapons on my call. Is that clear?"

"Crystal, ma'am?" Jacob assured her.

Miranda likewise gave a hand, her hand still on her gun but keeping it pointed down. Satisfied, Shepard looked ahead and unlocked the door. To Shepard's satisfaction, the hulking krogan that turned about to face them did not draw a weapon. Indeed he seemed more curious than concerned about their presence.

"Dr. Okeer," the colonel greeted, opening up her visor so her face was visible. "I am here because I require your services. And I'm afraid I won't be taking no for an answer."

End of Chapter 7

One can presume that Shepard and her squad are all wearing helmets out in the field. Those are especially helpful when they don't want to get recognized by the opposition. There will be one mission where this is an exception, which will become evident a bit later in the author notes.

In general a lot of the ME2 missions lacked the sort of multi-stage depth that the ME1 missions had. It was very much land, fight through a bunch of enemies, get to mission endpoint, done. And the sheer number of enemies killed, pretty sure the body count at the end is pushing near on an entire battalion or more, and all by basically three people. The ME1 missions, the mainline story ones at least, tended to be broken up a bit more so that there's genuine breaks in the fighting that I could use to insert dialogue, do some plot development, so on. Because of this, I'm going to be more drastically tweaking some of the other recruitment and main plot missions to fulfill my narrative needs. I left Grunt's recruitment mission mostly intact because I didn't have any needs that required its alteration, but I will be tweaking the dialogue with Okeer that's coming up next chapter.

I actually watched a playthrough on youtube of this mission just to refresh my memory of how it went. The person playing was doing a biotic Shepard. While I understand that everyone has their own preferred playstyle, I couldn't help but wince at just how slow the pace of combat felt when all you've got is a heavy pistol as compared to an assault rifle approach that I'm used to. Raw damage output generally trumped any cleverness you might be able to pull with your own biotics in my experience, and since squad mates dish out less damage than you with their primary weapons, giving up your own damage output seemed a poor tradeoff compared to picking squad mates that had the right set of skills for you to do basically the same thing you could have done but require that you give up your own firepower. To that end, I was completely on board with Andromeda when they just got rid of the class limitations of skills and let you mix and match however you wanted, and it's why I've pretty much been ignoring most class considerations for my story as well, at least for Shepard personally.

One of the reviews from last chapter elicited a raised eyebrow from me, more due to tone than content. Presumptions on the part of a reader is nothing new, and there certainly were some presumptions present, one does not use words like 'art' and 'mistake' without implicitly claiming a standard of judgment that should be adhered to, usually their own, though of the fandoms I write in I've seen it more often in Code Geass than Mass Effect. Generally my response to such tones is to metaphorically shrug and point out that subjective perceptions are by default inherently limited to the originating perspective. To be anything more requires the construction of actual arguments to back a position, or to get someone to actually pay you for holding such an opinion. Either way works.

My response to the actual content is to point out that interest in the Lovecraftian mythos is not universal. To me that entire genre comes off as fairly bland writing, the reasons of which are no more relevant or important as the reasons why someone might enjoy them, a matter of personal taste. That being the case, I have no personal reason to want to place any emphasis on any Lovecraftian themes that might have originally been present in the ME franchise. As far as my own personal tastes go, their exclusion does no detriment to the story that I am trying to craft, and that taste is pretty much the singular overriding authority for what I choose to include or exclude in my take on the ME universe. That there are people whom share my tastes is certainly gratifying. That there are those that emphatically don't, I take it as a given will occur, but it ultimately has little impact on what future direction the story will take.

I am in general quite open to critique or questions, within reason of course. In those instances where a reader is honestly expressing a desire for a story that I'm not writing or that I can't write, about all I can really do is explain why such an outcome is never going to happen and leave it to them to choose whether to continue following my works or not. I don't consider anyone to have an obligation to like what I put out, just as I don't feel any obligation to accommodate feedback that doesn't fit with my own personal vision.

So my inbox went a bit ballistic after the latest chapter I uploaded. Which was not a chapter for this story, incidentally. It was a 3000+ word prologue for a Code Geass concept that I needed out of my head so that I could focus on other things. For whatever it's worth, it does feel like the CG community is a mite more active on this site than the ME community. It also feels like there just aren't as many ME writers. Not clear on why that is the case. But anyway, consider this chapter as evidence that I haven't decided to mothball this story or something to work on others. I have way too many dangling stories as it is.

Also as a little bonus, here's a link to the first page of a little comic I'm having put together to show a rather pivotal scene that's coming I don't even know how many chapters back. I'm pretty sure I'll be withholding the other pages until we get there, so it'll be the only one for a bit. Enjoy.

deviantart dot com slash z98 slash art slash Priority-Horizon-1-837499324


	9. Chapter 8

_My brother was always the more book smart one. Probably why he managed to graduate first in our class at the academy instead of me. I was actually the only synchronizer in our class that year, which was a bit unusual, since there's usually at least a handful of us. Some fluke in the demographics, they ended up clumping either in the year ahead of us or the year after. Anyway, I got a bit of playful flak from the other synchronizers about letting my unaugmented brother beat me like that. And John of course was his own cheerful self about it. He counted it as a notch in our unofficial competition to see who'd get the furthest the fastest in our respective services._

_John was always more comfortable aboard ships, so of course he went full navy. Tactical track, like Mom. He and I used to joke all the time about whether I'd make colonel before he made captain, and which of us would need to salute first whenever we met up. We more or less kept pace with each other, at least until Elysium and Torfan. Not just because John was feted as a hero while I got smeared by the press, but because that was when I was chosen for induction into the Cadre and needed to spend a year getting the full N7 suite and learning how to make full use of my new augments. But once I was back in the field again, I caught up fast. Helps that Cadre are so often tapped for sensitive or important missions, so lots of opportunity to accrue combat time and get commendations. That's of course balanced out by how much more often we get shot at._

_After I joined the Cadre, the race then became which of us would get our own independent commands first, since as Cadre, I was now eligible to actually get a shipboard command. I won that one, when the admiralty gave me the _Normandy_ to hunt down Saren. And then after I nearly got myself killed putting that bastard down, someone in the navy got the bright idea of giving John _my_ ship as his first command. And so when some bastards out there went hunting for a _Normandy_ commanded by a Shepard, they got the right _Normandy_, but the wrong Shepard. They got the wrong Shepard._

_*deep breaths*_

_There's a saying amongst the Corps. That which fails to kill me has made a tactical error. I won't be making the same mistake._

_-Evangeline Shepard, Mandatory Counseling Log 009_

Chapter 8

Donatio mortis causa

Okeer regarded the human that had waltzed into his lab. She was clearly heavily armed, the krogan had a good eye for weapons much like many of his species that survived as long as she did, and the fact that she made it through both the failed berserkers and the Blue Suns indicated at least some passing competency. And she was confident enough to approach him with such forthrightness. Not out of bluster either, from the gleam in her eye. Another thing about having survived this long, Okeer also had a keen eye for judging people. Jedore, he had known at first sight was a pompous, brash woman that was more bluster than actual force. This human standing before him now, had the presence to actually back up her words. That by itself made her more tolerable.

"And who would you be," Okeer responded, "that would warrant me rendering such services to?"

He was still a krogan though, so a declaration of force was met with likewise, even if Okeer could put it a bit more eloquently than many of his more ill-mannered brethren.

"The name is Evangeline Shepard," the woman said, then smirked. "Need I say more?"

That gave Okeer pause again, for the name did indeed say it all. While there was undoubtedly some degree of exaggeration in the telling, it was well known by anyone that might end up on the business end of a gun that the principal lead in the hunt of the rogue Spectre Saren Arterius was a human woman by the name of Evangeline Shepard. It was further known, by those with at least some sense of self-preservation, that Shepard was Cadre, the Terran Empire's equivalent of the Council's Spectres, the salarian STG, or the turian Blackwatch. And while reputation alone might not make a woman, it was still foolhardy to ignore it completely.

"Oh, I suppose you could," Okeer said with a smirk of his own. "But why waste both our times?"

"Glad you're quick on the uptake," Shepard said. "So, you seem to have gotten yourself into a slight pickle. What say we get you out, and then talk shop?"

"If only it were that simple, Shepard," Okeer said, turning about to regard a single solitary tank within the room. "I cannot simply leave, not without my masterpiece."

The colonel regarded the tank, and the krogan that lay dormant within it. "So after all those rejects, this is the one you consider perfect?"

Okeer's mouth widened into a proud. "Perceptive. And yes."

Shepard frowned. Getting that tank out in the middle of the current battle would be nontrivial, seeing as it amounted to little more than a giant target. But Okeer was clearly heavily invested in its survival, and if it were destroyed he was much less liable to be cooperative. A problem, but not an insurmountable one.

"Is he ready for decanting?" Shepard asked.

"No," Okeer said, growling. "Had Jedore waited merely another day however, she would have rued ever crossing me."

That problem was now slightly bigger. Shepard brought up a map of the surrounding area on her omnitool and took a few moments to consider it. Once she had what she needed, she stepped over to Okeer.

"I can probably get both you and the tank out," she said. "It'll be messy, and frankly a lot of trouble to pull off. So I want to make sure this is going to be worth that trouble."

"That help you required of me," Okeer said. "What is it you seek?"

"The Collectors," Shepard said. "They've been attacking human colonies. I need countermeasures against their technology, and I've been told you've worked with it before."

"The Collectors," Okeer said, looking back at the tank. "Yes, I did acquire bits and pieces of their technology. I needed them to ensure this, grunt, would indeed achieve the perfection required."

"Acquired, by trading your own people to them?"

Okeer snorted. "My people are a pale shadow of our rightful glory. Whereas in the past when only the rightful strong would survive to glory, now they are thankful to coddle each and every mewling weakling that is birthed. What possible future lies in that, except one of continued capitulation to the Council races?"

It was not like Shepard needed more understanding of why even Okeer's fellow krogans wanted him dead, but the doctor was providing it nonetheless. Probably a good thing Shepard was still reserving the right to shoot any sociopaths after she had gotten whatever use she needed out of them on this hunt.

"Generally a future where your species hasn't been outright exterminated is usually better than one where it has," the colonel said dryly.

"Oh, and what makes you think we krogan would make the same mistake twice?" Okeer said with a feral sneer.

Shepard shrugged. "A species that makes the same mistakes isn't really a mark of progress. A species that progresses would make new ones."

The sneer turned into a smirk as Okeer grunted. "Was it your wit that helped you bring down Saren, Colonel?"

"No, I did that with my trusty sword," Shepard responded with another of her own. "The wit is just a bonus. But we're getting off topic." She pointed at the tank. "You say you used the Collector tech on your, perfect specimen. Did you just blindly use it, or do you actually understand what it was you did?"

Okeer growled. "I know full well what I did, Colonel. You think I would risk the future of my people upon some flight of fancy?"

Shepard did not bother answering that, instead projecting a basic scan of one of the seekers they had recovered at Freedom's Progress.

"Anything about this strike your fancy?"

Okeer regarded the projection and the basic telemetry being displayed with an intense focus. The scientist in him was now engaged, momentarily overriding his baser temper.

"A bug," he began. "A really nasty bug. Its eyes look simple, but it can probably see far into the infrared spectrum, useful for tracking prey. And it's got a biotic charge built up in its body. Could easily kill whatever it found. Could probably even interfere with communications, if there were enough of them." Okeer looked back at Shepard. "Its biomechanics certainly look like Collector tech."

"And you think you could neutralize it?"

Okeer grinned. "I'd say I have a fair shot."

Shepard shut down the projection while holding Okeer's gaze. "And you won't be too overly distracted by your pet project to focus fully on my needs?"

"My work is already done," Okeer declared. "All that remains is for my perfect krogan to emerge, and to prove his worth by killing mighty enemies. These Collectors, they would prove a more worthwhile challenge then the sell swords of this world."

"Two for the price of one," Shepard said. "Sounds good enough to me." Then into the radio. "Joker, begin attack run." Then back to the warlord. "Can we at least get this thing moving?"

"Yes, that we can do," Okeer said, accessing the controls on his own omnitool. "Be certain that the path is clear, Colonel. As I said, I do not intend to risk the future of my people on mere fancy."

The room vibrated slightly and distant explosions could be heard.

"Neither would I," Shepard stated.

"Colonel, what is the _Normandy_ hitting?" Miranda asked.

"This entire lab complex is built out of old ship wreckages," Shepard said. "The Suns took more care in making sure the lab itself was structurally sound, but all of the ancillary modules were more slapdash. Some of those modules include where the Suns themselves were barracked. We take those out, they have bigger fires to put out than stopping us from waltzing out."

"Or piss this Jedore off enough to come after us herself," Jacob pointed out.

"Possibly," Shepard said. "Even probably. But that's probably only going to happen if Jedore has lost all functional command of her subordinates, and if it's a fight between that loudmouth versus whatever is left of the Blue Suns company, I'll take the former."

"Fair enough," Jacob said.

More explosions sounded and a beep on the radio indicated the completion of _Normandy's_ attack run.

"There's a landing pad where the shuttle can touch down to load the tank," Shepard said, projecting the location and the path that would take them there. "Miranda and I will go on ahead and clear the route. "Jacob, you'll stay with Okeer and help escort the tank to the pad once I give the all-clear."

Splitting the short fireteam she had was less than ideal, but Shepard had little choice in the matter. They could hardly bring the tank with them while clearing the approaches to the landing pad, nor could they just leave Okeer by himself. The krogan was unlikely to run, not without the tank at least, but there was no telling if the mercs might yet breach the lab. In that case, having a second gun watching his back might mean the difference between him surviving to make good on his end of the bargain or Okeer dying senselessly trying to protect his prize.

"Don't keep us waiting too long, ma'am," Jacob said.

"Just be ready to hustle when I give the word," Shepard said as she stepped through the door.

The radio chatter from the Blue Suns had grown increasingly frantic after the additional airstrikes. By this point the mercs were recognizing that they were not just dealing with some sort of commando raid, they were facing potentially an all-out assault. Some were even suggesting calling in the planetary authorities, though others were just as quick to shoot down such a suggestion. Korlus' government was not known for efficiency or fairhandedness after all, and getting them involved was as liable to see them come in guns blazing on everyone as they were to be a complete no-show. What mattered to Shepard however was that the mercs were outright breaking, focused more on their own immediate survival than in retaking the facility. That did not seem to sit well with their commander at least.

"No more! I will have order! Must I do everything myself!?"

"How are the speakers still working?" Miranda said in some amazement as they climbed the ramps.

"Good question," Shepard said. "EDI, can you zero in on Jedore's position? Maybe we could launch one more strike to nail her."

"The Blue Suns commander appears to be on the move using ancillary corridors carved through the ship superstructures," EDI answered. "She is buried too deeply to reach without collapsing the entire stack of derelicts."

"Is she headed our way?"

"Yes."

"Good."

"Celebrations may yet be premature, Colonel," EDI warned. "Jedore is after all accompanied by a heavy combat element."

"So she's still got those mechs with her?"

"Affirmative."

Shepard sighed. "I didn't bring the Cain, because I thought the junkyard would be too close quarters to use. Next time, there isn't going to be a room small enough that I _don't_ bring the damn thing for."

While the bulk of the Blue Suns were too busy putting out fires elsewhere, some still had the misfortune of crossing paths with the two women. A few had the good sense to actually turn around and head in the opposite direction, which Shepard was perfectly fine with. Killing everyone they ran into might help maintain plausible deniability, but being that thorough was just plain tedious. That and Shepard was not actively looking for an excuse to shoot everything, she racked up enough of a body count just from those actually trying to gun for her.

"Landing pad looks secure," Shepard radioed in. "Get that tank and Okeer up here for evac, Jacob."

"Copy that Colonel, on our way."

More data flitted across Shepard's HUD. "Make it quick, we're making enough noise that the planetary authorities are starting to wonder what the hell is going on."

"Are they actually scrambling a response?" Miranda inquired.

"Not yet, but I'd rather not wait to see if they change their mind."

Fortunately for Shepard, the wait for their own ride did not take long as the shuttle came into view. Nothing shot at it either, which was a nice bonus. Jacob and Okeer were also making good progress, and by the time they emerged the shuttle was settling down to hover atop the landing pad. It did not touch down outright though, to allow for a quicker getaway once everyone was aboard.

A very loud droning sound cut through the air, along with a mechanical whine.

"Fuck!" Shepard cursed. "Haul ass!"

"This thing ain't gonna move any faster!" Jacob said, resorting to trying to push the tank physically.

"Okeer!" another woman's voice roared. "You traitorous son of a bitch, I will have your head!"

"Guessing that's Jedore?" Miranda remarked.

"Sounds like it at least," Shepard said. "Get a barrier up and protect the tank while it's getting loaded, I'll keep her and her toys at bay."

"Roger that, Colonel," Miranda did not waste time arguing.

Two of those toys were slowly lumbering up the ramp and turning to bring their weapons to bear. Jedore herself was already letting loose, along with the four troopers accompanying her. These soldiers were at least equipped with proper kinetic barriers, and seemed actually able to aim. The funny thing about kinetic barriers though was, all too often people ended up becoming overly reliant on them and not taking proper cover. So when something did happen to those barriers that they were not expecting, they tended to be sitting ducks. Like now, when the burst of electricity from Shepard managed to actually fry two of them due to not only lack of cover but also improper spacing. Not that they would have any opportunity to learn from their mistake, as the grenade that detonated between them finished the job.

At seeing their compatriots fall so quickly, the other mercs at least now took the time to find cover. Even Jedore relocated, suggesting the woman's sense of self-preservation was still intact, whatever her lack of common sense. By now however the YMIR mechs had gotten onto the landing pad and were revving up their guns. Without proper heavy weapons of her own, killing them was going to be a long slog.

"Colonel, down!"

Shepard obeyed immediately, having seen what the shuttle pilot was trying to do via her uplink. While the baseline Kodiak came unarmed, the models employed by the corps for combat drops were fitted with small mass accelerator cannons for some basic fire support. Even a small cannon was measurably more powerful than the usual handheld weapons mere infantry could carry, as Thomas now demonstrated by blasting away at one of the heavy mechs. The initial salvo was enough to strip off the mech's shields, but the YMIR's armor was able to hold. And the mech also mounted cannons of its own. Having identified the most direct threat, both mechs let loose upon the shuttle, forcing Thomas to raise the shields and halt the boarding process.

"Thomas, hold fire!" Shepard ordered. "We'll deal with the mechs! Just get that damn tank onboard!"

"Aye ma'am!"

Amidst the cacophony of cannon fire, a mighty roar sounded as Okeer charged forth. Despite his age, despite his ostensible qualifications, Okeer was still a krogan warlord and would not bide someone else fighting his battles for him.

"Goddamn it Okeer, get your ass back here!"

Whether his contributions on the battlefield were wanted or not by those engaged. Suppressing further curses, Shepard leaned out and blasted away. Okeer was clearly invested in seeing his perfect krogan reach safety, even if it meant sacrificing his own life in the process. The crazy old codger might even relish going out in a blaze of glory now that his masterpiece was complete. Shepard however needed him alive, and also cooperative, which meant extracting both the tank and Okeer together. Afterwards, she would give the old bastard a piece of her mind.

One of the mercs tumbled back, trying to get clear of Okeer's charge. The effort proved to be in vain as the krogan slammed into him, the weight of the impact shattering the shields before a shotgun blast did the same to the merc's armor. The man was already as good as dead, but it was not Okeer that delivered the final blow. That came about as autocannon fire from one of the mechs strafed their position, puncturing the half-dead merc and forcing Okeer himself to retreat.

The number of foot soldiers had dropped precipitously since the engagement commenced, but they were never the real threat. The mechs were what threatened to tear through Shepard and her squad, and with two of them present the colonel could not risk executing a phasic strike on one and leave herself exposed to the other while her systems cycled afterwards. But assuming Jedore was controlling the mechs, it might be possible to use the woman to neutralize them long enough to extract. Shepard rolled out of cover, pointed herself straight at Jedore, and zipped across the landing platform in a blue flash. Jedore was still turning about to see what was happening when Shepard crashed into her, sword punching straight through the former's gun and sinking into her shoulder. Jedore was brought crashing onto the ground, screaming in pain from the piercing of her flesh.

"Call your mechs off, now," Shepard demanded.

"Jedore does not take orders from you!" the woman snapped back.

Shepard twisted the blade, causing Jedore to scream again. "You live for as long as I have a use for you. Call. Them. Off."

The woman's fingers did something on her omnitool, and the two mechs stopped moving. That was still not quite enough to save the last of the mercs that had accompanied her, as Okeer finished turning his head into paste.

"Good. Now, you're going to keep them off, and you're going to let us leave with Okeer and his tank bred."

"You think you've won just because you have me pinned with your sword?" Jedore sneered. "One day Okeer will stick a knife in your back just as he did me!"

"My problem, not yours," Shepard said bluntly. "And I wouldn't waste any time trying to follow us, not if you don't want to end up bleeding out."

Shepard yanked the sword free from Jedore's flesh. She was not gentle about it, from the new cry of agony that sounded. For good measure, Shepard gave Jedore's hand a stomp. Enough to shatter the projector for the omnitool and probably bruise the wrist, but not enough to actually break anything. Probably. Turning about, Shepard was satisfied to see the tank finally getting loaded onto the shuttle. Now they just needed to get aboard themselves and-something began beeping.

Glancing over, Shepard saw the lights on the two YMIR mechs start flashing red. They were flashing very, very rapidly. Her head snapped back towards Jedore, but the Blue Suns commander seemed as surprised.

"You traitorous scum!" Jedore screamed. "Who dares to hack my mechs!"

"Sorry boss," a man's voice sounded over the Blue Suns comms, "nothing personal. Just making sure these commandos don't get away with our goods. Well, maybe it is a little personal. This is for making us listen to your goddamn voice during the combat drills."

"Move, now!" Shepard cried out.

Shepard did not head straight for the shuttle. She would have easily made it otherwise, considering the distance. Miranda and Jacob were also already onboard. The problem was Okeer, having rampaged across the pad to kill the other mercs, was flat out on the other side from the shuttle. He would never make it, not with the beeps turning into an almost solid tone now. Not without help. When Shepard warped, she could technically carry someone else with her. The additional mass ended up cutting short the distance she could travel, there were always tradeoffs like that, but she could do it. When trying to carry a several hundred kilogram heavy krogan however, that distance might be cut short rather more substantially.

The colonel was able to reach Okeer. She was able to jump them to within a short pace from the shuttle. They were still that distance away when the two mechs exploded with full force.

* * *

"Ugh," Shepard groaned as she awakened. "My head. What the hell landed on me?"

No one answered and as Shepard opened her eyes she was greeted with pitch-black darkness.

"Fuck."

Lights flickered on from her helmet, indicating that at least her systems were not totally compromised. Nor was the colonel buried wholesale, she had landed in a crevasse of sorts made up of hull fragments and bits of debris. Getting out without disturbing the whole stack and causing it to cave in on her was going to be interesting though.

"EDI, do you read?"

"I have lost contact with my primary node," the AI's voice sounded. "At present only a fragmentary unit is running within the suit's systems."

So not only was she stuck down here, she no longer had radio contact with the _Normandy_ either. That was going to make things a bit trickier.

"Take a sounding, I want to see what's around us, and how stable all this debris is."

"Performing scan," the EDI fragment confirmed.

On her HUD, Shepard was soon presented with a map of the tangle of metal and scrap around her. There was a disconcerting amount of red indicating structural weak points that if compromised could cause the entire pile to shift, but there were at least some regions of blue and green that suggested ways in which she could try climbing out. Shepard frowned. There was also a heat signature, one sufficiently above ambient temperature, that it could only be one thing. There was someone else down here with her.

"Okeer?" Shepard called out.

A soft groan sounded, one made just barely audible by the bouncing of sound within the crevasse. Shepard ambled over, and when she finally reached the krogan, her frown turned into an outright grimace.

"Goddamn it," the colonel murmured.

Whereas Shepard had managed a relatively soft landing on a pile of scrap, Okeer had found himself impaled upon a metal beam right through the gut. Even for a krogan, that was a lethal wound, and it was a minor miracle that Okeer had not already expired.

"Shepard," Okeer rasped.

Shepard sighed as she settled down next to the warlord. "I'm here."

"The tank," Okeer said. "Did it-did it make it?"

The colonel let out another sigh, this one filled with exasperation. "You have a bloody one-track mind, Okeer."

"Do not mock me, Shepard," Okeer growled. "The tank. Was it secured!?"

Shepard sighed again. "As far as I could tell, it was loaded into the shuttle. And the shuttle itself was probably far enough away to weather the blast. Beyond that though, I don't know. I _am_ stuck down here with you."

The krogan glared at Shepard for a few moments longer before grunting. "So you are. For my people's sake, I can only hope my own efforts have not been wasted like yours."

Shepard looked at the beam of metal. "Yeah, wasted about sums it up."

Okeer followed her gaze, then after a few moments looked back at Shepard.

"If the tank was saved, then I am at peace with my fate. You have upheld your end of the bargain, Shepard. I will not live to do so for mine, but in what time I have left, I can at least tell you whatever it is you wish to know. Perhaps it will help, in some small way."

Krogan honor was an interesting thing. The species as a whole adhered to a more straightforward and direct sense of obligations than say humanity, but pride also played a significant part in whether krogans thought an obligation was worth fulfilling or creating in the first place. That Okeer was prepared to at least try to meet his indicated he respected Shepard, to at least some degree. At this point, that was probably as much as Shepard could hope for.

"The Collector technology you bought," the colonel began. "What did it do?"

"It taught," Okeer answered. "I could mold the genes however I wanted, take the best qualities from the warlords of ages past, and string them all together into a perfect specimen. But the very best that nature could offer, all it amounts to is unfulfilled potential. That potential must be nurtured to be unleashed."

"Genetics is pretty plastic," Shepard nodded. "Just because you have the genes for stronger muscles or better lungs, doesn't mean much if you never train them."

"Yes," Okeer said, sounding impressed. "The Collector technology allowed me to train the very cells themselves. To instill within the muscle memory of how to fire a gun, or to gut an enemy. To make the lungs work as if they were running a marathon, without the specimen ever leaving the tank. All this and more, it allowed me to control in exacting detail the nurture that must accompany nature."

"And together, it helped you create the perfect krogan."

"Yes," Okeer hissed.

"And yet, what is a single perfect krogan supposed to do, against the sheer weight of an indifferent galaxy?" Shepard asked.

"Do?" Okeer said. "He need do nothing but to _be_ a krogan. His very existence will serve as an example, to my people and to all the other races. We krogan do not need our uncounted legions of the past to rise to glory, one of our finest is a match for any hundred of our enemies!" The krogan wheezed, the intensity of his speech aggravating the gapping wound through his stomach. "He-he will show my people, that we need not cling to our stagnant past. That the Genophage is just a sorry excuse we keep telling ourselves to explain away our decadent weakness!"

The cough this time turned into a fit, the spasms which were certainly doing Okeer no favors as he likely further aggravated the tear in his side. Despite it being a futile gesture, Shepard activated her omnitool and applied what medigel she could to at least try and slow the bleeding. She still needed some more answers from Okeer after all.

"Did you get a peek at any other Collector tech?" the colonel asked. "Did they offer you anything else besides the training tech?"

"They had much to offer," Okeer said. "But I had no need of their bioaugmentation systems, or of their gene sequence rewriters. Everything that my people need, we already possess. All I needed do was put the pieces together."

Shepard's lips thinned. That level of sophistication was disturbing in its own right, but that Okeer seemed able to understand it further reinforced the notion that the warlord could have been of some use in coming with countermeasures against the Collectors. Except he would soon be too dead to be of much help.

"I don't suppose you put any of your technical knowhow into your perfect krogan," Shepard said forlornly.

"I did not consider it necessary," Okeer said. "But, even if he cannot help you defeat the Collector's technology, he will still be of some use, if guided by the right hand." The warlord took a deep, effortful breath. "I ask this of you, Shepard. My, grunt, for all the nurture that I have invested within him, he still lacks the finishing touch. The touch that only true, genuine experience can provide. He needs a battlemaster to instill within him the true artistry of war. A battlemaster like yourself."

Shepard's head dropped an inch. "What?"

"Your reputation precedes you in many respects, Colonel," Okeer said, "including the respect you earned from Urdnot Wrex. While Wrex and I do not see eye to eye on many a matter, only a fool would discount his skills as a warrior. If you have won his approval as a fellow warrior, then you have all the makings needed of a battlemaster."

The colonel felt a headache building. "You want me to what, play sensei to your masterpiece?"

"A teacher, yes. I assure you, Colonel, he will be well worth the effort of mentoring. You are in pursuit of an insidious foe, I am of no illusions in that. You will need all the help you can get."

This day was the day of exasperated sighs. "Considering everyone thinks that the Collector homeworld is on the other side of the Omega-4 relay, I am on what amounts to a suicide mission. And you think that's a good environment to bring along what amounts to a newborn to teach him how to fight?"

Okeer grinned like the manic he was. "What truer proof would there be of my creation's perfection, for it to do what others call impossible?"

Shepard stared at Okeer. "No offense, Doctor, but I think you're genuinely insane."

The krogan chuckled. "I have been accused of much worse in the past, Colonel. Such a paltry insult is hardly enough for offense."

The colonel's lips quirked into the slightest of smiles. "You're right that I need help, and right now I'm not terribly picky about where it's coming from. But that doesn't mean I'm prepared to sign on just anybody. If your tank bred is as good as you claim, I can certainly the worth in mentoring him. But whether he is good enough or not, that's for me to judge."

"I would not have asked if I thought that judgment would lead you astray," Okeer said with confidence.

Shepard frowned slightly. "This, grunt, of yours. He was built upon the sacrifice of how many hundreds of his fellow clones? How many that did not pass whatever muster you demanded of them? That alone means he has a lot to live up to, to have made all that sacrifice worthwhile. And that's before we count all the krogans you sold to the Collectors to get their technology in the first place."

"Do you seek to preach to me on my deathbed about the morality of my actions?" Okeer inquired.

"Hardly," Shepard said. "I'm not priest. I just want you to understand, the standard that I will hold your perfect krogan to. And the sort of future I expect him to help his future build." The colonel knelt down so that her eyes were level with Okeer's own. "If we make it out of this suicide mission of mine, and if your grunt proves as capable as you claim, the one that I would see him follow afterwards is the very same Urdnot that you don't see eyes to eyes with, even if you respect him as a warrior. That is the path that I want you to understand you are hinging your hopes on."

Okeer smirked. "If you did not have in mind your own goals, your own standards, I would have been most disappointed, Colonel. And if the path that my grunt takes sees him carry forth the Urdnot clan to greatness, so be it. They are still krogan, and their chieftain at least understands the staidness that grips our people." The warlord took a deep breath as he lowered his head back against the rubble. "I will content myself knowing that they will strive for new glories instead of wallowing in fading memories of past triumphs."

Madman, that Shepard was still convinced Okeer to be. But he had just enough vision that his dreams were not outright insanity, whatever they cost to fulfill. It was in some ways a stark warning for Shepard herself, a reminder that one could become lost in the process of trying to achieve a dream or ambition. For that reason alone she could at least pity Okeer, even if her empathy remained more constrained.

"Blessed be those whom return to the Great Mother," Shepard said. "Let their forms give her strength, as she gave us strength when we emerged from our shells."

Okeer chuckled slightly. "You would say a prayer, even for one such as I?"

"Death is the great equalizer," Shepard said. "All will face it one day, and its inevitability is what makes life itself worthwhile."

The warlord took another deep, pained breath. "A warrior and a poet. Those were the greatest of our battlemasters. Krogans truly worthy of the title. To think, I would find such strength and wisdom again, in a human." Okeer opened his eyes and met Shepard's own. "Blessed be the hunter, swift and true. May she find her quarry and bring bounty aplenty to krantt and clan."

A different prayer, this one for the living.

"Blessed be the fathers, of strong will and heart," Shepard continued. "For our sons and daughters they serve as pillars of strength."

"Blessed be the student, of keen sight and sense." The warlord's voice was growing quiet. "May she learn in either victory or defeat, but that she always learns."

"Blessed be the master, of wisdom and counsel. For in them we are given the truth of our selves, of our clans, of our people."

"Blessed be the sons, blessed be the daughters." Okeer's voice was now a whisper. "For unto them do we give, the future that we forge."

The old krogan closed his eyes, letting the last of his breath escape him. His battle was finally done, after over a thousand years.

Shepard's however was far from over, and the first step to continuing it was getting the hell out of here. Leaving Okeer's corpse, the colonel started climbing, careful with her footing. The amount of debris collapsed atop was uneven in distribution, if she could reach a thin spot she might be able to get a signal through, or even blow her own way out. The latter was risky as it could result in a further cave-in, but as a last resort it was at least available.

"This is Shepard, _Normandy_, do you read?" the colonel tried once she was higher up.

"….nel-copy," a few words broke through the wash of static, along with a few additional packets of data.

"My primary node is attempting to localize," EDI reported. "There appears to be a tunnel at bearing 220 that leads further upward. That may allow for a more stable connection."

"Alright, let's try it."

The tunnel in question turned out to be something of a tight squeeze with her armor, but it widened out after a meter or so. It was also definitely heading up, and more data packets got through as she slowly inched upwards. Then.

"Colonel Shepard, do you read!?" a frantic sounding Miranda called out.

"I read you," Shepard said. "Triangulate on my position, there's some debris between us, might need to use the shuttle to peel it back."

"Roger that Colonel, on your way-wait, there are krogan in the vicinity of your transmission!"

Shepard frowned but did not stop climbing. "What are they doing?"

"They appear to be, digging? They-"

Bright light flooded Shepard's vision as something pulled off the debris on top. Looking up, Shepard saw a fully suited up krogan peering down.

"Colonel! Are you alright!?"

"For now," Shepard said, rising carefully and watching to see what her would-be rescuer intended. "Weapons hold, we don't want to provoke them."

"We'll come in for pickup the moment you give the word, Colonel," Jacob said.

The krogan continued staring at Shepard, and the colonel stared right back. Then, she frowned.

"You. You're the one that pointed us to the labs before."

While the standardized armor and helmets worn by all the tank bred krogans made them look functionally identical, simple wear and tear had added enough distinguishing marks that allowed Shepard to pick out differences, at least with the help of her sensor suite.

"I saw you fall from where glass mother was," the krogan said. "You and others. I saw where you landed, and so I began to dig."

Shepard looked around, seeing several other krogans gathered about.

"Not just you, it seems."

"The others, they followed me," krogan said. "We found the blue fleshy thing, she cried out at us. It was a voice we recognized. Jedore."

Shepard raised an eyebrow. "Jedore survived the fall?"

"Survive the fall? Yes. Survive us? No."

That was hardly surprising, nor did Shepard feel like shedding any tears for the psychopathic Blue Suns commander.

"Okeer is also down there," Shepard said. "The one you called Father. He, didn't make it either."

The krogan looked down the hole, then back up at Shepard. "Then, the voice is gone."

"Yes, yes it is."

The clone shifted, looking about. "Then, we do not need to stay here any longer."

"You never had to," the colonel stated.

That saw the krogan tilt its head a bit. "You said this before. I did not understand before, but I think I do now."

"I hope so," Shepard said. "So, what will you do now?"

The krogan looked around, at the wasteland, at his brethren, at Shepard.

"We will go," he finally said. "Away from here. Far enough so that the only voice we can hear is our own. And then we will listen, to what our own voices say."

"Yeah, I think that's a good idea," Shepard said. She gave a nod. "Thanks for digging me out."

"I followed the smell," the krogan said. "It is, different. Better, than the smell of this world. I did not want it to be buried forever here."

The colonel chuckled. "Well, I'll take that as a compliment." She took off her helmet, facing the krogan with her hair in the wind. "I don't know if we'll ever meet again, and you really don't have any reason to believe anything I say. But, none of you are failures. That you are all alive is testament to that fact."

The krogan reached up, and took off his own helmet. Finally the two were speaking face to face.

"I do not know if what you say is true," he said. "I do not know what I am if not a failure. But I can see already that there is more to my life than fighting or dying. I would find what I am."

Shepard smiled. Reaching out slowly, she gave the krogan a caress on the cheeks. The krogan did not pull back, and instead seemed to even enjoy the touch.

"Not everyone that smells different will be like me," she said. "Life isn't all fighting, but there is a lot of it. So watch your backs out there, yours and your krantts."

The krogan regarded Shepard levelly for several moments.

"And you as well, squishy one."

That elicited a chuckle from the colonel. "You can call me Shepard." She stepped back and waved for pickup. "And if we ever meet again, you'll need to tell me what to call you as well."

End of Chapter 8

Right, I'm back. Been a while, yes? Not that I haven't been busy, seeing as there's a new story with 75K+ words under my profile. Ahem.

Yeah, this chapter was annoyingly difficult to write, since there was so little depth to it in the original game. Hence why I ended up needing to dramatically alter the ending of how Okeer dies. The way it happened in the game felt way too forced. This is definitely turning into a thing with the vanilla ME2 missions. It's one reason why I already have drastic alterations in mind for some of the ones taking place on Omega, and I'm seriously contemplating the same for the Illium ones as well. The one that's probably going to be the biggest pain is Jack's recruitment, both in terms of the mission itself and in terms of narrative coherency.


	10. Chapter 9

_Why the hell would I want to talk about that? Bloody hell, fine. I swear you lot are more interested in satisfying your own morbid curiosity than actually trying to treat your supposed patient. Yes, I've died. Twice now actually. First time was when they were trying to remove my implants as a kid and I was actually medically dead for a minute or so before they were able to resuscitate me. I was unconscious the whole time, so of course I remember jack all from the actual experience. About the only thing I do remember was just colossally pissed I was at my mother for having nearly gotten me killed._

_Second time I died was after killing Saren. I'd activated Extremis even though my AI partner was halfway across the galaxy from me, and I had to override the failsafes to do so. And then I went and detonated the biotic charges in my implants and armor in order to make sure Saren, or that husk-like thing he turned into, stayed down. That one I do remember, and it hurt like hell. After I blacked out though, it's all a blank. So if you were expecting me to tell you all about the pearly gates or the flaming pits that I saw before getting yanked back to the land of the living, I'll have to disappoint. It was all a big zip. So why the hell are you all even bothering to ask about this?_

_*beat*_

_Wait, what? This was a prompt because you lot thought putting my own death in context would help me cope with John's!? Oh fuck all of you, you sanctimonious-_

_-Evangeline Shepard, Mandatory Counseling Log 010, restored upon appeal over original rejection of entry_

Chapter 9

Dulce et utile

"Okeer was the best lead Cerberus could find for someone that might be able to work with Collector technology," Miranda said. "Losing him is problematical, on a variety of fronts."

The three were gathered in the conference again for the mission postmortem, with Shepard seated at the front of the table and Miranda and Jacob on the two sides. Though the statement by Miranda was clearly directed at Shepard, the woman spoke it looking directly at the man opposite her.

"C'mon, Miranda, there's no way we could have known the mission would pan out the way it did," Jacob tried to assuage the woman. "Considering the Charlie Foxtrot down there, we were lucky to even get there before the Blue Suns gutted Okeer!"

"But we did get there beforehand," Miranda retorted, "which means _we_ were the ones that lost Okeer. The only thing we got out of the effort is that supposed perfect krogan tank bred of his, which amounts to little more than a fancy paperweight at this point."

"Well, we could try popping him out," Jacob suggested. "See if Okeer taught him anything useful about the Collectors."

"The Colonel has already made clear Okeer didn't transfer any of his technical aptitude to the tank bred," Miranda however quickly shot it down. "We'd probably learn more about the Collectors by dissecting it and seeing how their technology performed this training or nurturing that Okeer claimed it to have done."

Amidst all this, Shepard had remained otherwise silent beyond providing the initial precis. The woman's legs were propped up on the table in a horribly informal poise. Had anyone else walked into the meeting, they could easily be forgiven for presuming Shepard was not actually paying attention at all.

"Perhaps you would like to contribute something further, Colonel?" Miranda said somewhat testily.

The actual occupants could be similarly excused. Despite the implicit admonishment however, the colonel's legs stayed propped up.

"Okeer was Cerberus' best lead," Shepard began. "Should I take it then that the organization doesn't have any others worth pursuing?"

Miranda frowned. "That, might be a mild exaggeration."

"Yes or no, Ms. Lawson," Shepard said. "If Cerberus has another lead we can follow, then let's go follow it. Otherwise we try things my way."

That caused Miranda to blink and exchange quizzical glances with Jacob. What the former presumed was another backhanded criticism of her organization was turning into something a bit more. It was probably still a backhanded criticism.

"What are you thinking, ma'am?" Jacob asked.

"We need expertise," Shepard stated. "We need it badly enough that Cerberus is casting a net amongst non-human specialists despite its usual modus operandi. Well, considering I'm on slightly better standing with a few of the other races than your organization, it is one of the reasons your Illusive Man keeps trying to recruit me, I might have better luck finding such a specialist, if one exists, amongst the other races."

Miranda considered the answer for a moment before grudgingly nodding. "That makes sense. Where do you intend to look?"

The colonel was still not putting her feet back on the floor. Instead she leaned back a bit further.

"Joker," she said over the internal comms. "Plot a course to the Citadel, best speed."

"Uh, the Citadel, ma'am? Are you sure?"

"Positive."

"Alright ma'am, plotting course to the Citadel. Hopefully they don't impound us or something."

"Begging your pardon ma'am," Jacob said after a moment, "but I gotta agree with our pilot. You sure it's a good idea to be heading to the Citadel in this ship?"

"Well, I've been assured that our credentials will withstand any sort of official scrutiny," Shepard said, glancing over at Miranda.

"They will," Miranda stated confidently.

"And the Council owes me one for helping save the station. It might take a little bit of diplomatic greasing, but they should leave us alone."

Jacob grunted, indicating willingness to trust in the colonel's judgment on the matter.

"What do you intend to do once at the Citadel?" Miranda asked the next salient question.

"Check in with some old friends and a few associates," Shepard said. "Admiral Anderson has been posted to the station as the Empire's naval attaché ever since his promotion, and he might be able to put me in touch with any of his Council counterparts looking into the Collector attacks. Garrus is a Spectre now, but Executor Pallin or some of his other C-SEC colleagues should still be able to get in touch with him. And C-SEC's connections aren't to be scoffed at either. I'd also probably be able to get word to the STG or the Blackwatch once on the Citadel. The STG especially might have someone in their records that could do the sorts of things we need, considering how tech savvy the salarians are."

Jacob and Miranda exchanged another look. A reminder, this, that for all Cerberus' own extensive reach, the colonel was not without contacts and resources of her own. That even if Cerberus' assistance was extremely useful, in the end, the colonel did not absolutely _need_ them. Whether the same could be said the other way around, was less certain. Especially if the colonel really did find a tech capable of counteracting Collector technology via her network of contacts instead of relying on Cerberus. They would need to redouble their efforts to demonstrate their indispensability to Shepard. Miranda grimaced slightly. The thought of needing to do so ground at her.

"It'll also provide us with a controlled environment to decant that krogan," Shepard said. "Somehow just popping the cork on it down in the cargo hold doesn't feel like the brightest idea, especially if he turns out to be belligerent."

That the other two could agree on wholeheartedly. Although.

"Are we certain the risk is warranted at all?" Miranda asked.

Shepard finally deigned to glance over at the woman. "You suggesting we keep him on ice forever?"

"That, or hand him over to specialists that could examine him."

The colonel snorted.

"I'm serious, Colonel," Miranda said reprovingly. "If Okeer did employ Collector technology, that's the same as having employed Reaper technology. We've all seen how dangerous that can be. And this, nurturing, mechanism. Surely I'm not the only one to see parallels between it and Indoctrination?"

Jacob actually winced at that, indicating the thought had not occurred to the man. Shepard's expression however remained nonchalant. Indeed she was picking up her mug of coffee and taking a long sip.

"We've built up a significant amount of data about Indoctrination, both from examining victims directly and from all the data we pulled from the base on Virmire," Shepard finally said. "Included amongst that data is a catalog of the sorts of physiological changes that occur within the victim's brain as they are Indoctrinated. I've been having EDI run comparisons, between the scans Okeer took of his own tests subjects, his perfect krogan, and the catalog of Indoctrinated victims, to see if there are any matches. So far, she hasn't found anything that deviates from a baseline krogan's neural physiology beyond the usual margin of error. So however the Collector tech allowed Okeer to train and nurture his clones, it doesn't have the same effect as Indoctrination, as far as we can tell."

That seemed to satisfy Jacob, even though Miranda still looked uneasy.

"Bottom line is however, the risks in this instance appear manageable, and the tradeoff substantial," Shepard continued. "At present the ground combat element of this team is all here in this very room. Together, we three don't even constitute a proper fireteam, and our relative quality can only go so far in compensating for our lack of quantity. We _need_ more warm bodies to handle all of the situations that can crop up once we're groundside. And if this krogan really will be as good as Okeer claims, then he'll add not just another body, but also be able to keep up when the going gets tough."

"Makes sense," Jacob was quick to see the tactical logic. "Assuming we can actually trust the thing though."

"That's what I'm here for," Shepard said. "I know the krogan can be more than just the savage monsters popular media like to portray them as. And my little chat with Okeer suggests he felt the same, whatever his callous methods. If this, grunt, is his magnum opus, then he would have done his damndest to make sure it could fulfill all the potential his people are capable of. So I'll give him a chance, and one chance, to prove both Okeer and me right."

* * *

"Would you look at that," Shepard remarked.

This was not the first time she had watched the approach to the Citadel through the gaseous clouds of the Serpent Nebula, and it was always hard to recapture the sense of wonderment of that first time in experiencing anything. What elicited the colonel's remark was thus not the floating station, which she now knew to be a Reaper construct instead of a prothean one, but the numerous additional contacts that had not been here the last time she stood on a ship's deck watching the approach. Numerous Terran contacts.

"Tenth Fleet," Joker said. "You know, I took part in some of the exercises that gamed the Empire having to assault the Citadel. Looking at our ships actually helping defend the station, that feels like a lifetime ago."

The dozen or so contacts visible was far from the whole of Tenth Fleet, but the large shapes visible in the distance did represent a significant percentage of the fleet's hitting power. Four dreadnaughts was nothing to scoff at, and attack craft aboard the two carriers could serve as very significant force multipliers in their own right.

"Same here," Shepard agreed. "Though I have to wonder what contorted logic the navy came up with to number the fleet Tenth instead of Ninth."

"Maybe the admiralty thinks they can get some more money out of parliament if they pretend we have ten fleets instead of just nine," Joker suggested.

Shepard snorted. "I know politicians are easy targets, Lieutenant, but surely we owe our elected officials a bit more respect for their basic intelligence than that?"

"I could have been talking about the brass, you know," Joker said.

That earned him a bark of laughter. "Good point. But remember, not all brass is dull. We've got one of our own wearing them now, after all."

"Yeah, that's true," Joker conceded. "Say hi to the old man for me, will ya?"

"Sure thing."

The radio crackled. "_Normandy_, this is Citadel flight control. You are cleared for docking in secured berth 7 in Zakera Ward."

That saw Shepard tilt her head a bit. "I don't recall requesting a secured berth. Joker?"

"Wasn't me ma'am," Joker said, then got onto the comms. "Flight control, this is _Normandy_. Why the VIP treatment?"

"This is the _Normandy_ being commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel Shepard, right?" the response came promptly. "The same Shepard that took down Saren?"

Joker glanced back at Shepard, whose eyebrow was now arched upwards.

"Uhh, yeah?" Joker finally said.

"Then you _definitely_ want a secure berth, just to keep the crowds at bay," the controller informed them. "They're already massing."

"Oh for the love of god," Shepard said with a sigh.

"Roger that flight control," Joker said. "Appreciate the heads up and the help."

"You're welcome, _Normandy_. And pass on our own thanks to the good colonel. A lot of us wouldn't be here today if she hadn't showed. Citadel Control, out."

Joker glanced back again, this time with a big grin. "Pays to be famous, huh?"

"We'll see if it's actually any better than being infamous," Shepard said in an exasperated tone. "There better not be an honor guard waiting for me when we disembark."

There was. Standing arrayed in the debarkation area was mercifully only a single row of troopers, but there they were, a mixture of turian, salarian, asari, and even human officers in the parade dress of Citadel Security. Waiting to receive Shepard herself were two officers wearing the insignia of captains. One was a turian that Shepard easily recognized. The other, a human which she did not. Shepard herself stepped out alone, having issued explicit orders for the crew to remain aboard the _Normandy_ until the initial furor had died down. The two C-SEC officers clicked their heels together and issued crisp salutes upon the colonel's approach. Shepard returned the courtesy with one of her own.

"Welcome back to the Citadel, Colonel Shepard," Decian Chellick greeted.

"Thank you, Captain," Shepard said. "This is arguably a much warmer greeting than I got the last, two times, I was here, in fact."

Chellick chuckled. "I can imagine." He then nodded to the human beside him.

"Captain Armando Bailey," the man introduced himself. "Formerly of the Imperial Terran Gendarmerie, transferred over to C-SEC to help bolster their manpower after, well, you know."

"I do indeed," Shepard said. "Well, Captain Bailey, I'm sure it has been an interesting learning experience, for both yourself and your new coworkers."

"It has at that," Bailey said, sharing a knowing glance with Chellick.

Whatever the two's experiences, they seemed to have at least developed some sort of rapport seeing as they had been mutually tapped to greet Shepard.

"Well then, shall we get going?" Chellick said.

"By all means, lead the way," Shepard said.

The trio walked past the assembled honor guard and Shepard took the time to meet the gazes of every single one of them. Even if she felt the pomp and circumstance unwarranted, these officers had still gone to the trouble of turning out like this, so it was only right that she properly acknowledge them for it.

"We have a vehicle ready to take you to the imperial embassy," Bailey said as they finished the review. "It's waiting outside, just far enough from the crowd that they can get a peek of you boarding."

At the look Shepard gave him, the C-SEC captain shrugged.

"Might as well throw them a bone, ma'am. Let them have a little bit of satisfaction so they can go home happy."

"Fair enough," Shepard said. "Just don't expect me to be holding any meet and greets, or interviews."

"Don't worry, Colonel," Chellick assured her. "We have strict orders to ensure that your privacy is preserved while on station."

"Hmm, maybe there are some benefits to being famous."

That assessment was sorely tested as Shepard emerged and a massive roar crashed into her. The colonel blinked a few times to make sure she was not seeing things. The crowd, there must have been thousands of people being held back by security barriers and clearly straining C-SEC officers. As Shepard gazed out at the crowd, she found herself experiencing an entirely unfamiliar sensation. For so many years she had lived with the stigma of being the Butcher of Torfan. For the most part Shepard had ignored it, since few people were stupid enough to want to draw the attention of someone called a butcher by being overtly hostile. Other times it was even useful if she needed to subtly threaten someone that was being particularly intransigent. And on the rare occasions where someone did try to pick a fight over it, Shepard could easily point out that the officer that originally accused her of butchery had been dismissed from the service, while she had risen to serve as a personal armswoman of the emperor himself, so what worth was any validation she was not getting from them? Now though, instead of unspoken wariness or even barely subdued animosity, what she was facing was pure adulation. It was such a marked shift that Shepard was at a slight loss as to how to handle it, and she momentarily froze at seeing the crowd.

"They like it if you wave," Bailey leaned in and suggested.

Blinking, Shepard snapped out of her daze and did as suggested. The cheering somehow grew even louder.

Chellick cleared his throat after a moment. "We should probably get to the vehicle before they actually try to breach the perimeter."

"Yeah, that's probably a good idea," Shepard agreed.

When they reached the car, Bailey climbed in with Shepard while Chellick remained outside. At the quizzical look he got, the turian gave a slight shrug.

"Captain Bailey was the only one seconded to assist you on your visit," he said.

Shepard now looked over at Bailey.

"Believe me, wasn't my idea, ma'am," Bailey said. "Must be another one of those benefits to being famous."

To that Shepard gave a snort, then turned back towards Chellick.

"I never did say thanks for covering our approach while we climbed the tower. So, thanks, Captain."

Chellick bowed his head. "Just part of the job, ma'am. But you are welcome."

And stepped back to let the door close. The sound from outside was thankfully also muffled and Shepard let out a sigh as she slumped into the seat.

"Give it a few days and the excitement should die down," Bailey offered.

"A few days?" Shepard said incredulously. "At the rate this is going, I'll be done with all my business on the station before then."

"Hmm, that's certainly one way to avoid it all," Bailey said with a chuckle.

Shepard echoed the captain after a few moments. "And let you get back to doing real work instead of playing gofer for some unpolished brass?"

"Well, I wouldn't put it that way myself," Bailey said.

"Right," Shepard drawled. "Anyway, I presume this vehicle's been swept for any bugs that aren't C-SECs?"

"We even had a few decoys," Bailey said, without bothering to deny the latter bit.

"Probably the best that can be done. So, will Executor Pallin be available for some catching up while I'm on station?"

"The executor sends his regards, and has some time at 1400 local time tomorrow during his lunch break that he would be pleased to have your company for," Bailey said, making sure the wording was appropriately dignified. "He suspects that, with the other calls upon your time, that would be most convenient for you as well."

Shepard's eyes narrowed. "What?"

"It appears that the Council itself would like to have a word with you," Bailey explained, "at least according to scuttlebutt. To properly thank you for saving the station, amongst other things. And considering how important the Council's time is, they're arguably going a bit out of their way to clear the necessary time on such short notice."

"Oh bloody hell," Shepard sighed. "Shouldn't the ambassador have warned me or something?"

"Kinda surprised he didn't," Bailey said. "You ever do anything to offend him?"

"Nothing recent as far as I can recall."

The captain snorted. "Well, then you can be sure he's already working on ways to best capitalize your presence to the Empire's diplomatic advantage."

"He bloody well better not," Shepard growled.

That earned her another chuckle from Bailey. "Well, that'll be between you and him. And I know it may get a bit annoying, Colonel, but you really are a hero to all of the people out there. I don't know how much you've read up on the after-action reports, but the platoon you managed to bring through with you managed to draw the geth away from continuing their sweep of the station. They saved a lot of lives due to that."

Shepard's lips thinned. "Then the heroes are the marines that stood their ground. I was a bit busy with other things."

"You're _all_ heroes," Bailey said with some forthrightness. "There is no you versus them. All of you played a part in saving this station, and all of you are celebrated for it. Don't think otherwise, Colonel."

Shepard regarded Bailey with a blank expression, and then allowed a smile to touch the edge of her lips.

"Why is it that you remind me of my platoon sergeant when I was a mere JG on my first assignment?"

"In the gendarmerie you work your way up through the ranks," Bailey said. "In a way that means all gendarmerie officers are what you call mustangs in the navy or the corps."

"I suppose so," Shepard said. "Well, your words of wisdom are heeded, Captain."

"Damn right they should be."

The two officers exchanged looks, and then another bout of laughter.

* * *

"I know neither of us can properly appreciate it," Anderson said as he poured a drink from the whiskey bottle. "But I thought we'd share a toast nonetheless, for old time's sake."

"Well, I certainly won't say no," Shepard said as she accepted the glass. "Especially if you're breaking out the good stuff."

Anderson chuckled. "One of the advantages of being a flag officer, you get both a bigger paycheck and a larger discretionary budget." He raised his glass. "A toast. To friends."

"And to family," Shepard responded as she clinked her glass to his.

The two spent a moment or so downing their glasses and savoring the smooth drink.

"So how does it feel to be an admiral?" Shepard asked as the two settled into their seats.

"I'll be honest, I wasn't quite expecting to earn my admiral's star this way," Anderson said. "The way I figured, if I ever did make admiral, it'd be as one of Home Fleet's squadron commanders."

While there was only a single flag officer slot within the Imperial Cadre, quite a few of its members went on to achieve flag rank due to the peculiar nature of Home Fleet's organization. As it was the fleet responsible for the defense of Sol, and also served as the strategic reserve for Arcturus, the two most important systems within the Terran Empire, the imperial family kept a tight grip on control over the fleet. While the fleet admiral in command tended to be a career naval officer, all of the squadron commanders, from the battle squadron down to the escort and reconnaissance squadrons, were commanded by Cadre alumni. A big reason for Cadre to hold shipboard commands like Shepard did was to ensure there was a ready pool of candidates that had the experience to credibly be placed into those command slots. So while it was certainly true that there was only one Cadre flag officer, there were plenty of Cadre that were flag officers.

"What, you didn't want to be a proper flag officer like a general, sir?" Shepard said teasingly.

Anderson chuckled. "No, I always did have a more naval inclination than others in the corps. I seriously considered taking the naval track when I entered the academy as well, but well, they needed more synchronizers in the corps, so that's where I went. Still ended up on the naval component of the Cadre in the end though."

"Well, I for one at least am glad you did join the corps," Shepard said. "Our paths may still have crossed, but it wouldn't have been as early."

"True that." Anderson drained his cup. "I'm sorry about your brother. I know it can't be easy."

Shepard grimaced but gave a shrug. "I'm used to not easy. And things arguably haven't gotten any easier since."

"So I've heard," Anderson said. "I know you have already set your mind to it, but Shepard. The path you are walking, it's damn risky."

Shepard took a more measured sip of her own glass. "I take it I've disappointed you, sir?"

"You have," Anderson said frankly. "I know why you're doing this, and I know a part of you is also probably disappointed at yourself, but you're doing it anyway, so me saying anymore more isn't gonna change anything."

"Probably not," Shepard agreed. "Though it might make me feel a bit guiltier."

Anderson snorted. "If guilt was all that was needed to make someone not stray, the galaxy would be a much better place."

"Probably," Shepard agreed. She now finished her glass. "I really am sorry, sir. But, some things I need to do. Whatever the cost."

"I know," Anderson said. "And if it'd been me, I can't even say I'd do differently. Makes me sound like a sanctimonious ass for wanting to chew you out for it."

"Some random troll on the net telling me I'm doing something wrong is a sanctimonious ass," Shepard said. "Someone I trust and respect telling me I'm doing something wrong, that's a warning I need to pay attention to, and also a warning that I could yet do more wrong. I'll watch myself, sir. You have my word."

Anderson nodded, clearly far from happy, but recognizing that this was the best that Shepard could offer right now. He just needed to trust that his protégé would indeed not allow herself to succumb to temptation and cross a point of no return.

"I hear you've at least been making some progress on your mission," the admiral said.

"Some," Shepard said, "but we've hit a wall of sorts in terms of recruitment."

"The technical expert that you spoke of in your message," Anderson said with a nod. "You think you'll be able to find someone here on the Citadel?"

"I'm hoping for at least a recommendation," Shepard answered. "Hopefully that doesn't take too long to happen, not sure I want to stay here long enough for Udina to get any more ideas."

Anderson chuckled. "The ambassador's not so bad a colleague, he just approaches problems from a different angle. And honestly, it's an angle we need too."

"I'm sure," Shepard said with a smirk. "But that is why we have diplomats, so those of us not of that inclination don't need to dirty our hands with such business, no?"

Another chuckle sounded. "That's one way of looking at it. And I've made sure Udina knows about your lack of enthusiasm for such niceties, so he's restraining himself from making too many presumptions upon your time."

"Good," Shepard said. "And what of your own work, sir? I don't suppose you've managed to interest the Council in helping deal with the Collectors?"

"Not as such," Anderson said. "At least not openly. The Council has their own priorities, and since the attacks have been strictly limited to human colonies thus far, they need to be careful about giving the impression of bending backwards for the Empire's sake. That said, the nature of these wholesale disappearances is troubling enough that we have been getting bits and pieces of cooperation. The Citadel Fleet and the navies of the Council races have stepped up their alert level, and their ships have been told to keep an eye out for any strange activity. They're also passing on patrol reports, scrubbed of course, of anything odd that they come across."

"That's certainly not nothing," Shepard said.

"It certainly isn't," Anderson said. "More could be done, but we'll need a concrete target to point everyone at first."

"It's almost like the Saren hunt all over again," the colonel remarked.

"In some ways, it is. In others, even though our formal relations with the Council is much better this time around, the amount of on-the-ground cooperation isn't quite as extensive, if only because the Council can't adopt a mandate of stopping the Collectors with so little evidence at hand."

"Hopefully the additional data I've brought will help nudge them closer to taking action," Shepard said.

"At the least it should open up some avenues for your own mission," Anderson concurred. "In the meantime though, a room has already been prepared for you within the embassy section. That should help keep out any riffraff that's trying to get a peek of you."

"If I really am that famous, that's going to actually make my mission harder," Shepard said with a flicker of irritation.

"Agreed. And that extra attention is also going to mean extra scrutiny of your actions as well. That scrutiny will also apply to His Majesty, which I'm sure hasn't escaped your notice."

"No," Shepard pursed her lips. "No, it hasn't." And sighed. "Well, it isn't like I was lacking in a sense of discretion beforehand, but this is a pretty good reminder of how important it is."

"True that. So, how long do you think you'll stick around?"

"I wasn't kidding when I said I'd only be here for two or three days at most," Shepard said. "That's enough time to see all of the people I actually want to see, and just barely enough for all the people I have to see. And that should be enough time for the crew to get at least a little shore leave in while we re-provision."

"Fair enough. If you want to chance it, you probably could head down to the wards incognito. Just, try not to get into any barfights you can't win."

Shepard flashed a wide grin. "I'm a marine, sir. No such thing."

* * *

The last time Shepard had been in these chambers, the real, actual Council chambers instead of a simicry, she had been a bit too busy trying to save the galaxy to really appreciate the scenery. Now, the leisurely approach of this occasion allowed the colonel to better take in her surroundings without having to regard them through a tactical lens. A tree was now a piece of decoration instead of an obstruction to her line of fire. The stairs rising up towards the actual audience platform were no longer an annoying gauntlet that needed to be surmounted, now they were just merely annoying. Or maybe she was just annoyed having to break out her dress uniform. Even when officially on leave, she apparently could not escape being stuffed into the damned thing. And that was also in spite of having left it behind at her Vancouver residence. But for some reason, when preparing for her audience with the Council, Anderson managed to pull out a set tailored to her exact measurements. That had earned the admiral a beady glare from Shepard, even as Anderson was clearly trying to keep from bursting out in laughter.

The admiral himself was in his formal dress, which would be more consolation to Shepard had Anderson not looked so accustomed to it. He probably was, considering the number of diplomatic functions he needed to attend. Udina too, come to think of it. The two men were actually flanking Shepard herself as they climbed the stairs. And to top it all off, music was blaring the requisite fanfare on their approach. The Council really was pulling all the stops out. Maybe coming to the Citadel wasn't such a bright idea after all. Shepard kept her expression flatly neutral, if only to not cause the cracks in her skin to strain and become more visible. The dermal regeneration was for whatever reason still not taking, and the orangish glow leaking from between her scars gave Shepard an ominous, sinister appearance. Being in a brightly lit area helped hide some of that as the glow basically faded in the ambient light, which fortunately the Council chambers were. Otherwise Shepard might have had to resort to makeup to hide the scarring, at which point she really might have just made a run for it in the _Normandy_.

The trio arrived at the top of the stairs and found themselves face to face with the Council itself. Directly across from Shepard was the asari councilor, Tevos. To the right directly across from Udina, the salarian councilor, Valern. And to Shepard's left, across from Anderson, the replacement turian councilor, Quentius. It might be a few more years before he stopped being the new guy, though from everything Shepard had heard Quentius did not have a stick up his ass about humanity like Sparatus did, which made him a marked improvement from his disgraced predecessor.

"Lieutenant-Colonel Shepard," Tevos greeted with a wide smile. "It is a pleasure to finally meet you in person."

"Thank you, Councilor," Shepard responded courteously. "It's an honor to be here, and not be getting shot at."

Udina rolled his eyes in exasperation, having probably expected the quip and long resigned to it. Anderson's lips quirked ever so slightly before the admiral smoothed out his expression.

"Hmm yes, your last visit here would certainly have been more, dynamic," Valern said, allowing a smile of his own to crop up. "One hopes you will find greater time for leisure this time around."

The banter between someone of such august personage as Valern with arguably a respected but still somewhat middling ranked officer of a foreign polity might have seemed out of place, except Valern and Shepard were far from strangers to each other. They were not quite at the level of acquaintances, Shepard really only having spoken to the salarian councilor once before, but the colonel's subsequent actions had been more than enough to solidify Valern's good opinion of her. Besides, it was a poor politician that couldn't take a joke.

"While you are clearly already acquainted with Valern," Tevos interjected, some additional introductions are likely in order. "I am Tevos, and to my left here is Quentius."

The turian dipped his head. "It is indeed a pleasure to meet you, Colonel. I am aware that you have your reasons for disgruntlement with certain elements of the turian political establishment, but I hope we can put that all behind us."

"Whatever my problems with that element, I have also had the genuine honor of working with many turians I would be proud to consider fellow brothers in arms," Shepard responded graciously. "And I likely owe my life many a times over to Captain Vakarian for all the times he's covered my back." The colonel tilted her head aside. "I don't suppose Garrus is around to say hi?"

"Regrettably Agent Vakarian is currently off station," Valern answered, "though I am sure if you wished to contact him, one of his C-SEC colleagues would be able to put you two in touch."

And implicitly let Shepard know that the Council knew of her upcoming meeting with Pallin, and consented to it. Shepard nodded in turn.

"Thank you kindly for the suggestion, Councilor."

And looked back at Tevos, to signal she was ready to get the actual show on the road.

"While you have likely heard this many times already, it is fact that you played a pivotal role in saving this station, those whom call it home, and ultimately the galaxy as a whole," Tevos said, laying it on a bit thick, but arguably not by much. "While the Council has conveyed its formal gratitude officially to the Terran Empire, it was always our intention to convey our own gratitude to you in person. That circumstances would delay our opportunity to do so are of sincere regret, we nonetheless remain earnest in our thanks for your deeds, Colonel. For ourselves, and for our peoples."

Shepard dipped her head, not quite a bow, but still an acknowledgement. "You are welcome, Councilors. Though my oaths are to His Majesty, to uphold them obliges that I conduct myself with the greatest of honor to our friends, and with the greatest of directness to our enemies."

"Such steadfast loyalty and dedication to duty is to be admired," Quentius. "And demonstrates to all the worth of friendship with not just the Terran Empire, but with humanity as a whole. It is my hope that humanity will find equal worth in all the other races that wish to befriend them."

The colonel smiled slightly. "I think fair progress has been made on that, Councilor. At least for myself. And should anyone unfairly disparage the nobility of any other races, I will not hold my silence."

"It is good to hear that even when on leave for your, extracurriculars, you hold yourself to such a standard, Colonel," Tevos said. "We sincerely hope you are never given cause to reconsider, and we pray that you will find success without ever having need to compromise."

That, that was not some idle remark, Shepard immediately picked up. Of course the Council of all parties would know about what she was up to, and with whom she was working with. Tevos' statement was thus a warning to Shepard that the Council, for all its platitudes, was very carefully watching the colonel, and while they were prepared to look the other way for now, that could change depending on her actions. Two could play at that game however.

"Some people may think that going it alone is the most expedient manner of resolving a problem," Shepard said. "Others may choose to do so because either in audacity or arrogance, they do not need the help. I see things a bit differently. I am where I am because of everyone that has deigned to lend me a hand. And the more hands that become willing to do so, the further I can yet go in the future, no matter how far away the destination is."

And there it was. For all the principled and nice sounding platitudes in her statement, Shepard was also making a few subtle points to the Council. The colonel believed in cooperating with others, and would even prefer it. But that was still contingent on getting results from those collaborations. If at any point she were to be disappointed by the inadequacy of whatever assistance was lent however, then much as the Council would no longer be able to ignore her association with Cerberus, Shepard herself might find such association to be her only option. It was a dangerous line being drawn here, and arguably the Council had much less reason to allow that kind of risk to be running around. But then again, at least some of the councilors had demonstrated a daring willingness to take risks if they thought the payoff worth it. So where did Shepard weigh in on this balance of risk versus reward?

"With the right friends, one can indeed go great distances," Tevos responded. "Know that when you find yourself faced with an especially arduous and difficult trek, there will be at least one door through which you can pass to begin it."

Curious, that. This had to have been a pre-agreed statement, one that indicated the Council as a whole felt Shepard herself of sufficient value that they would go to at least some length to not lose her to a potentially unfriendly bloc. The colonel herself however could not discern why that might be her case. Yes, she was an extremely competent warrior, and yes, she was someone with more than a passing familiarity to the emperor himself, but that did not feel sufficient to warrant this direct attention. So what was it? The answer however was not forthcoming from the careful, guarded expressions upon the councilors' faces. If she wanted to find it, she would need to look elsewhere. For now, Shepard simply dipped her head once more.

"I will keep that in mind, Councilor."

End of Chapter 9

Laying the groundwork, as it were. This chapter was in general much easier to write. Probably helped that I had more room to do some proper world building. One more chapter I think before we head off for Omega.

As indicated by this chapter, my Shepard is a bit more proactive in pursuit of her mission than the canon Shepard. In the original game, a lot of things were handed to you as the character, which arguably makes for a less engaging main character when translated into prose. I did something similar in the first part, where the progression from each of the main story missions was structured so that Shepard discovered them one by one instead of being told, investigate these three places at your leisure. For the second arc, Shepard is doing a similar discovery for the recruitments. She gets handed one dossier, and after that several of the rest will naturally emerge as a consequence of visible developments in the story. That I think will make for a more engaging read.

The proactive nature of my Shepard also helps reinforce just why she's regarded so highly, even by those wary of her. She's good at her job, which is not just about shooting at enemies, but about actually leading. So the initiative she's displaying, along with her ability to respond to ostensible failures, all demonstrate her supreme competency.

Back in one of my author notes for _Duty_, I mentioned how the Empire didn't have a formal one-star rank for their admirals, that those were usually always brevet commodores. I'm modifying that, so that the Empire does indeed have a one-star rear admiral, but it's an administrative slot instead of a fleet command. So one-star rear admirals are in some shore based post, while two-stars hold actual fleet commands.

So this happens every once in a while, but it happens enough times that I feel like I need to make a note of it in the author notes of the first chapters of whatever story I write. I generally don't proofread or do editing passes, what's there is what's there. So while I can understand the sentiment, trying to go chapter by chapter to point out grammar or spelling mistakes isn't going to prompt me to go and fix anything, so keep that in mind before feeling the urge to spend all that time doing so. This is after all something I'm doing in my free time, and when I'm already more coherent and readable than probably 90% of the other works on this site, I see little to no value in spending any additional time trying to smooth it out even further, since achieving textual perfection is not one of my reasons for writing.


	11. Chapter 10

_So the person that actually invited me into the Cadre wasn't Colonel Ryder, it was Captain Anderson. Though back then he was still Commander Anderson. Was already on the naval track even back then. This was after Torfan, and I had just been cleared by a board of inquiry over my actions down on the moon. I was kind of taken by surprise by the offer, since even though I was officially exonerated, the media circus around me was still going strong. Bad optics recruiting someone the press was calling a war criminal into the Emperor's personal guard and all that. Of course, Anderson set me straight pretty quickly. It's not that His Majesty doesn't care about optics, he does. He needs to have the trust of the people in order to lead properly. But His Majesty also knows that sometimes he needs to make hard decisions, even if they're not popular decisions. And as it turned out, recruiting me wasn't even that unpopular of a decision. Or rather the Cadre itself prodded a few of the outlets to get them to back off, so by the time I was finished with all the surgeries necessary to install the N7 implants, the news cycle had moved on. There are still some people with sticks up their ass and call me the Butcher of Torfan. Frankly, their disapproval is a goddamn compliment._

_-Evangeline Shepard, Mandatory Counseling Log 011_

Chapter 10

Quid pro quo

Despite its vast size the Citadel was still fairly small in astronomical terms, which resulted in space being something of a premium, especially in the high-class sections like the Presidium. That meant the office Shepard now walked into was downright palatial, at least by shipboard standards. Kind of a given considering whose office it was.

"Colonel Shepard," Pallin rose to greet his guest.

"Executor Pallin," Shepard responded with a wide smile, then regarded the other turian rising. "I see you are already entertaining."

"An old friend, who insisted on meeting you," Pallin said with a slight chuckle. "Colonel, this is Septimus Oraka. I believe the two of you were very briefly acquainted the last time you were aboard the Citadel."

"Indeed we were," Shepard said as understanding dawned upon her. She extended a hand. "I'm glad to see you made it through that alive, General, I believe?"

"Retired," Septimus said as he gave Shepard a firm shake. "And the feeling is mutual. You saved many lives that day on the Citadel, Colonel, my own included. The galaxy would have been a poorer place if that victory came at the cost of your life."

"My, but aren't you the charmer," Shepard said with a playful smile as the three took their seats.

"Septimus here is a frequent patron of the Consort," Pallin said. "One'd hope he'd have learned something from all the time he's spent with her."

Shepard tilted her head aside. "The Consort?"

"You do not know of her?" the executor sounded genuinely surprised. "Sha'ira is famed for the depth of her company and wisdom. Though, seeing the Empire's lack of a formal presence aboard the Citadel until recently, perhaps you may have never had the opportunity to learn of her."

"Probably not," Shepard agreed, glancing over at Septimus. "Though if I recall correctly, her name did come up during our exchange. Something about her perhaps spotting my quarry?"

Septimus nodded. "It was indeed Sha'ira that caught sight of Saren heading towards the Presidium Tower."

"Well, do pass on my own regards for her keen sight," Shepard said.

"I will do so," Septimus said with another bow of his head.

At that moment, a door opened and a few officers came in bearing trays of food. One each was set before the three seated occupants before they retreated to give them privacy once more.

"Are you always waited on hand and foot like this?" Shepard said jokingly.

"It would be an abuse of my privilege to be served like this when I am dining alone," Pallin responded in kind. "But today with such esteemed guests present, it can be justified as a, diplomatic courtesy."

Shepard snorted. "Ah, and since you do have guests to entertain, I suppose you won't need to decline this on account of it being considered a possible bribe?"

From the bag the colonel had brought, Shepard pulled out a bottle of turian brandy. Septimus gave a hearty laugh while Pallin simply smiled.

"I see you are well versed in turian etiquette for guests," the executor said. "Next time I will have to do a better job as a host and ensure you are also similarly provided for."

While raw distilled alcohol was one of those few consumables that did not care about chirality, many actual alcoholic beverages were filled with impurities and the like for flavoring and texture. As such even for drinks one needed to take care from which dispenser one filled a glass with, though Shepard probably could drink the brandy without going into shock if only thanks to her implants. She might still have the runs for a bit though while it was flushed out.

"If you ask real nicely, Admiral Anderson will probably be willing to part with one of his prized whiskey bottles so that you can better entertain levo guests." Shepard inhaled the wafting scent of the steak set before her. "Not that this isn't already pretty high-class itself. Did this come from a C-SEC cafeteria?"

"Spirits no," Pallin said as he poured for himself and Septimus. "C-SEC doesn't get a big enough budget to enjoy this kind of extravagance on a regular basis."

"Sounds about right," Shepard said, lifting her own glass of nonalcoholic beverage. "To dull brass, who the enlisted only think get gourmet meals while they're on field rations."

"All too true," Septimus said, then took a long swig of his drink. "Damn, is this Noverian brandy?"

"Think so," Shepard said. "My crew hit up the spaceport shops when we were in Port Hanshan. These are some of the surplus that ended up in my possession instead of going with Garrus when he left for some reason."

"And how did you get this past customs?" Pallin said as he looked over the nondescript bottle. "Alcoholic beverages from outside Council space are highly regulated."

Shepard cocked her head aside. "Really? Why's that?"

"Officially, it's to ensure any alcoholic beverages consumed within Council space meet strict safety and quality regulations," Pallin said. "Unofficially, the asari snuck in that particular provision because they have a tight grip on the market, as far as levo consumers go that is, and they have a sizable footprint in dextro sales as well. Some of the biggest purveyors of spirits are based in the Asari Republics, and they don't like competition."

The colonel snorted. "Typical. And as for how I got it through, I got it shipped in through the diplomatic box Admiral Anderson gave me for anything I wanted to bring station-side quickly."

"Hmm, not exactly in the spirit of what those boxes are for," Pallin said. "But I suppose if all you did was smuggle in some brandy, I should be grateful."

"I assure you, everything I brought in were purely personal effects," Shepard said with a wide grin.

"I'm sure," Pallin drawled. "That said, I did promise you a working lunch, and I didn't invite Septimus solely so that he could convey his gratitude."

Shepard looked over at the retired general even as she began cutting away at the steak.

"My understanding, Colonel, is that you are currently investigating the attacks on the outlying human colonies," Septimus said, "and are working under the hypothesis that the responsible party is the Collectors."

"That's right," Shepard said. "Though we've moved a bit beyond it merely being a hypothesis."

"You have proof?" Septimus leaned in.

"Enough to know who we need to go after," Shepard said, "but not enough for the how and where."

As she popped a piece into her mouth, Septimus and Pallin exchanged looks. For some reason the executor dipped his head in a nod.

"You may not have been informed, Colonel," Septimus began, "but after the attack on the Citadel, and in light of the intelligence recovered from Ilos, the Council set up a taskforce to investigate the Keepers and try to unravel the mystery behind them."

The way Septimus was eyeing Shepard, the turian general was clearly insinuating he was read in on the Reaper threat. And so was Pallin, in all likelihood, seeing as the executor was the one that organized this meeting.

"About time," Shepard said after swallowing.

"Quite," Septimus agreed. "The team is composed of mostly salarian and asari researchers, but I am in charge of the overall project."

That saw an eyebrow arch upwards. "You, sir?"

"Well I am retired," Septimus said, "so it was not as if I had any more pressing matters to attend to. And they needed someone to keep the scientists on track. Salarian researchers especially can get rather easily distracted."

"Hmm, good to know," Shepard said. "And? Has your team managed to unearth any Keeper secrets?"

"This is not the first time a concentrated effort has been made to study the Keepers," Septimus did not immediately answer. "Past efforts however almost always resulted in the Keepers resisting further prying of their inner workings by self-destructing, and a fear of losing their services entirely was what prompted the Council to outlaw any further attempts. At this point however, such inconvenience is heavily outweighed by the danger our continued ignorance represents, of not just the Keepers, but the station as a whole."

"No disagreement there," Shepard said.

"The sad truth is, Colonel," Pallin interjected, "there are substantial portions of the Citadel that are effective black boxes, shielded against external scans and protected by what we can only presume to be both active and passive defenses. Past attempts to gain entry only resulted in lost probes or even of people. Anyone that makes it through the initial lockouts, such as by following a Keeper, is never heard of again."

"They prefer it that way," Shepard said, without elaborating on which they she referred to. "Here's a piece of technology that just works, but there's no easy way to figure out the how and the why."

From the nods that Septimus and Pallin gave, there was no need to.

"So I am given to understand," Septimus said. "And in light of such formidable determination to hide the Citadel's secrets, my team has had to be equally determined and innovative to overcome these defenses. In the process, we've managed to successfully tag hundreds of the Keepers and based on their movements create the most complete and detailed map of the station anyone has ever seen, outside of the station's creators, at least."

"And those black box compartments?" Shepard inquired.

"We've managed to get imagery from inside them," Septimus said softly. "Nothing that constitutes any sort of grand revelation, but it's allowing us to refine methods for successfully penetrating deeper and deeper into the Citadel."

Shepard nodded. As far as she could tell, Septimus was being honest about his team's relative progress. They did not have any sort of smoking gun yet, but that the Council was making the effort at all was a good sign that they were taking the Reaper threat seriously. And if they could figure out how to control the mass relay that the Citadel actually was, that opened up all sorts of interesting possibilities, like maybe even a preemptive strike against the Reapers while they hibernated out in dark space. Assuming they could come up with a big enough gun to do the honors.

"You mentioned salarians and asari in your research team," Shepard said, "and you yourself are clearly a representative of the Hierarchy. May I take it then that the Empire does not have formal involvement with the project?"

"You may," Septimus said without any hint of apology. "While relations between the Council and the Empire have warmed considerably as of late, the Empire remains an external polity. As such it would not be appropriate to invite its cooperation on such a sensitive matter at this point in time."

That was understandable enough, seeing as the Citadel was still the political heart of Council space. Even if they were all in it together in the fight against the Reapers, it was not unreasonable for the Council to take some care in how much access they gave the Empire. Besides, it was not as if the Empire was not keeping some secrets of its own.

"But the Empire is close enough to keep us apprised of any major developments," Shepard ventured. "After all, is that not why I am here?"

"To an extent," Septimus said. "The diplomats are still hashing out the exact nature of any exchange, but I thought we could perhaps get the ball rolling on our own."

Technically a marine was not supposed to circumvent the normal diplomatic process that her civilian counterparts engaged in, that sort of overreach tended to result in court martials and the like. But there were times when an officer did find herself in a situation where she could engage in a sort of quid quo pro with servicepeople of other polities, especially when such exchanges touched upon matters of mutual interest. Done well, these sorts of interactions helped open up channels that let those very civilian counterparts make progress in their own processes. Done poorly, there was always a panel that could be assembled.

Shepard held out her hand, activating her omnitool's projector. Out popped a hologram of the insectoid drone that had been recovered from Freedom's Progress.

"We're calling this a Seeker," Shepard said. "It's a biomechanical construct that is equipped with a biotic charge, which we believe allows it to place any target it lands upon into some sort of stasis. All indications are the Collectors release swarms of these things upon unsuspecting colonies, neutralizing any possible resistance before swooping in and, collecting, all of the paralyzed colonists."

"Spirits," Septimus murmured. "And have you found a way to defend against it?"

"We're working on it," Shepard said, turning off the projector. "All the money in the galaxy doesn't do much without the right expertise though, and the sort of expertise I need is rather, specialized."

"I can imagine," Septimus said. "If you would like, I can see if any members of my team possess the right qualifications."

"That's kind of you to offer, General, but I've already gotten some leads via my STG contacts," Shepard said with a slight smile, letting Septimus know that she was not without resources of her own. "I would however be happy to let your team chew on the data themselves, it never hurts to get a second opinion on such matters after all."

"Certainly," Septimus said.

"And it wouldn't hurt if you already have something that might be useful for my mission," Shepard added on nonchalantly.

In all likelihood the Empire would be providing the data Shepard had gathered thus far to the Council races without too much fuss or muss, the Collectors were a threat to everyone after all, and it was to humanity's benefit if the other races ended up better prepared. A particularly cynical person might believe that letting the Council races get weakened facing the Collectors or the Reapers might be to humanity's benefit. That viewpoint was, in Shepard's considered opinion, something only an idiot could take seriously. When the Reapers arrived, they would not discriminate. If the galaxy did not stand together, then they would just end up hanging separately. That being said, there was nothing wrong with wringing a few advantages for her own side in the process. Some payback for her efforts was warranted after all.

The colonel's last remark caused Septimus to blink a few times before chuckling. "At this point much of what we've discovered still tends towards the theoretical and hypothetical side of things. As such, I am limited in what sort of practical assistance I could provide. Fortunately, my friend Pallin here may be able to offer you something more concrete."

Shepard glanced over at the other turian. "So you're both the host and the gift bearer, Executor?"

"So it would seem," Pallin said dryly. "My understanding, Colonel, is that you are recruiting personnel to assist in the hunt for the Collectors. While you are clearly in need of technical expertise, am I correct in assuming you also would find useful competent soldiers?"

"You are," Shepard answered without any hesitation.

"In that case, I have a candidate that I think you will find welcome at your side, seeing as the two of you fought together before," Pallin said.

Shepard's eyes narrowed. "Garrus?"

The executor nodded.

The colonel's eyes remained narrowed. "You'll have to excuse me, Executor, but isn't Garrus a Spectre now, not C-SEC? Is he even someone you could assign to anything?"

"You are certainly correct that Agent Vakarian is no longer under my command," Pallin said. "At the same time, even after Vakarian was appointed a full Spectre, he has kept C-SEC, and myself, rather more fully appraised of his activities than the Council likely prefers." The turian shook his head in some wonderment. "Indeed he seems more diligent in keeping up with paperwork he no longer needs to file than when he was actually a C-SEC officer."

Shepard chuckled. "Garrus never was one for cutting corners."

"I am beginning to recognize that myself," Pallin said. "Anyway, the point is, while Vakarian is not someone that I can officially assign anymore, he is at least someone whose whereabouts I am kept abreast of. And if you determine that having Vakarian as a member of your squad again would be beneficial to your current mission, I can provide you with his location for you to attempt to recruit him again."

Shepard pursed her lips thoughtfully, then tested the waters.

"I can certainly see how useful having a Council Spectre accompanying me would be."

"I am sure his clearance will come in handy if your hunt takes you into Council space," Pallin responded without any hesitation.

Now that was interesting indeed. It was pretty clear that Garrus being offered as a potential squad mate was done with the consent of the Council, what with how the turian's status as a Spectre was so openly emphasized. The Council almost certainly intended for Garrus to provide a watchful eye on Shepard's activities, to make sure the colonel did not go too far or cross too many lines in her pursuit of the Collectors. And as far as minders went, the Council was clearly counting on Shepard's friendship with the turian to get the colonel to accept his presence even so. Not just their friendship, of course, Garrus was after all a very competent soldier, and the Council was clearly offering to let the turian use his authority to help Shepard as well. Give and take all around, this exchange was.

"I certainly wouldn't mind having Garrus riding shotgun again," Shepard finally said with a playful smirk. "Where would I need to go to let him know he's been, volunteered?"

"Omega."

The smirk disappeared and an eyebrow rose.

"You're joking."

The colonel's reaction was far from unwarranted. If there was a dark mirror of the Citadel out there in the Terminus Systems, it would be Omega. Originally an extremely eezo rich asteroid, the constant flurry of construction that accompanied the efforts of ruthless and exploitive mining interests had resulted in a truly gargantuan habitat fan out from the rocky base. Law and order existed only to the extent that rival gangs managed to assert control over their particular patch of territory. The place certainly did not respect the Council's authority, or that of its chosen agents.

"I am not," Pallin assured her. "Vakarian has been making use of his Spectre status to close out several longstanding C-SEC cases, both those he himself investigated in the past as well as a few his colleagues dealt with. A suspect in a particularly, unpleasant, such case was reported to have reemerged on Omega, prompting Vakarian to set out to try to bring him in."

"Isn't that technically outside of Council jurisdiction?" Shepard asked.

"Technically, yes," Pallin said. "But Omega does not really have any sort of formal governing authority either, aside from whichever gang happens to be the most powerful at any given point in time. As such Vakarian is not likely to ruffle too many feathers by making a collar there, as long as he does it discretely."

It seemed in this case Omega's lawlessness actually worked to Garrus' attention. Time would tell if Shepard could similarly exploit that lack of order when she dropped in for a visit.

"Fair enough." Shepard popped the last bit of steak into her mouth, having made quick work of it despite the running conversation. "And the Collectors are supposed to come from the other side of the Omega-4 Relay. Suppose I'll need to check the place out sometime." The smirk returned. "Should be fun."

* * *

The cozy but otherwise comfortable apartment Shepard had been granted for her stay upon the Citadel was supposed to have been swept for bugs and otherwise secured. Shepard did not believe that for a moment, if only because she knew for a fact that the Empire itself would be keeping tabs on her. Which other intelligence agency was able to successfully do the same was a more open question, though seeing as the main purpose for her using the room right now was to get into contact with the one most likely to succeed, the colonel was not terribly worried. The monitor on her console lit up and a familiar looking salarian face appeared with that characteristic wide smile of theirs.

"Lieutenant-Colonel Shepard, it is good to see you again, and congratulations on your promotion."

"Thank you, Captain Kirrahe," Shepard said with a smile of her own. "And I'm sure it won't be too long before you get a promotion of your own."

During the hunt for Saren, Shepard had had the pleasure to work with quite a few competent officers from the Council races. Chaleen Kirrahe was one such officer, the commander of a Special Tasks Group company that was sent to investigate the base on Virmire. Despite his company suffering horrendous losses, Kirrahe managed to hold out long enough with an accompanying Blackwatch company for Shepard to arrive and reinforce them. Together, the combined force even managed to survive a brush with Sovereign, and nearly got Saren then and there. At the end of the mission Kirrahe made clear he felt he owed Shepard one for having come to his command's aid. Now, the colonel intended to cash in on that favor.

"One hopes," Kirrahe said with a chuckle, then more somberly. "I heard about what happened, Colonel. My sincerest condolences."

Shepard gave a slight nod. "The thought is appreciated, Captain."

"Well, setting that aside," Kirrahe continued, "I received your inquiries about a competent technical specialist, and as it happens, I do know of someone that would be suitable for the challenges your current mission presents. He's retired STG, but holds qualifications in a wide range of medical fields. Convincing him to assist in your mission should not be terribly difficult either. Getting to him to make the offer on the other hand might be."

"This former operative of yours holed up in some hellhole?" Shepard guessed.

"A particularly nasty one at that," Kirrahe confirmed. "Mordin Solus is the operative's name, and after his retirement Mordin got it into his head to strike out for Omega."

An eyebrow rose. "Really?"

Whether it was coincidence or providence, Shepard did not know. Though it was rather curious so many people of interest seemed drawn to the station.

"Really," Kirrahe said. "Last I heard he had set up a clinic to treat the station's inhabitants, which given the environment is certainly no easy task. Certainly an odd choice for one's retirement."

"Running away from past secrets?" Shepard suggested.

"Possibly," Kirrahe said. "We in the STG all have events and missions we'd prefer to forget. Perhaps Mordin thought he could do some good in that desolate place, he is a superb physician on top of his other skills. And if there is a place in need of a good, honest doctor, I suppose Omega would be it."

"Sounds like a man with a conscience," Shepard said with an approving nod. "Though considering he was STG, he also presumably is willing to do what is necessary to get the job done."

"Very much so," Kirrahe said with the certainty only possible from firsthand experience.

"Good to know," Shepard said with another nod. "Anything else I should know about Dr. Solus before I go knock on his door?"

"Just that he's one tough cloaca. Tough, but still a cloaca. And you can tell him I said as much."

Shepard chuckled. "Well how can I go wrong with a stubborn salarian? They've worked out well enough in the past for me."

Kirrahe gave one of his own in turn. "I'm sending a letter of introduction that will vouch for you, along with a collection of Mordin's publicly published works to help you assess his credentials. I am also forwarding a non-public report he compiled that I think you will find very interesting reading. It was the last report he worked on for the STG before his retirement, after our little adventure on Virmire."

To that Shepard's expression went blank for several seconds. "I hope you won't get into trouble for this, Captain. I'd hate for you to fall too far behind me career wise."

Not that it stopped her from making some light out of the insinuation.

"Trust me, Colonel, I don't intend to," Kirrahe assured her with a smile. "Besides, I'm fairly certain my government will get around to sharing the information with yours soon enough. Let's just call this, expediting your personal access to it."

Shepard nodded. "In that case, my thanks, Captain. For everything."

"You are more than welcome, Colonel. Good luck, and good hunting."

The screen flickered and Kirrahe disappeared. Right on cue, an indicator blinked to mark the files that had been transferred over. Bringing up the attachments, Shepard saw that most of them were academic papers involve genetics and disease. Though, the topics seemed oddly relevant to environments related to the krogan. Perhaps Mordin had some involvement with monitoring of the Genophage's effects. Not that the scientist was ever likely to tell her, so it was at best a minor piece of useless trivia. What drew Shepard's more immediate interest however was the title of the last paper sent. _Indoctrination Progression and Mental Degradation._

As Shepard browsed through the paper, it became pretty clear that it was compiled based off of examination of the STG operatives taken prisoner by Saren's forces on Virmire. All save one had become irreparably damaged neurologically as a consequence of the indoctrination experimentation carried out on them, and for many the only real reprieve from that fate was euthanasia. The only survivor that had his mind intact was the control subject, though the report also made clear the stress the soldier suffered had rendered him permanently unfit for continued service. Seeing his fellow soldiers slowly lose their minds and not being able to help would do that.

Alongside the recovered bodies, the STG had conducted autopsies of the euthanized soldiers to examine in more detail the structural changes that occurred in the brains of their fallen comrades, mapping those changes back to the psychological state exhibited by those survivors that were kept alive long enough to complete detailed interviews and evaluations. The final conclusion made by Mordin was, not good. As far as the scientist could see, there was no feasible way to reverse either the physical or psychological effects of Indoctrination. There were a few recommendations for how to block out Indoctrination from secondary transmitters like the brains of already Indoctrinated subjects, but nothing that could provide long-term protection against a primary transmitter like a Reaper. Indeed Mordin was rather vehement in his closing statements about the vileness of what had been done to his fellow operatives, as well as his insistence that any examples of the technology that did this be destroyed immediately and thoroughly.

Shepard closed the file and leaned back contemplatively in her seat. She was pretty certain ONI had already scarfed down the contents of Kirrahe's message, and the analysts would doubtlessly find the technical details of that last report fascinating. Shepard's own attention however was drawn to the subtle messages being conveyed. That Kirrahe was willing to give her the report at all was almost certainly because he was explicitly authorized to do so, perhaps at Valern's direction. It was further indication that the salarian government supported, unofficially at least, Shepard's objective of hunting down the Collectors and ending the threat they represented. That was the big picture message. The small picture one was arguably more pertinent to Shepard's immediate needs.

If Mordin really had been one of the researchers that examined the repatriated STG operatives, he likely was also read in on the Reaper threat itself. That meant he would probably believe Shepard if she claimed that by going after the Collectors, she was also going after the Reapers. A not inconsiderable point, seeing as most rationale people would find the entire notion of genocidal AI that swept the galaxy clean every fifty thousand years absurd. And if he believed her about the threat the Reapers represented, he would likely be more willing to sign on with her, despite her nominal patrons.

She would still need to go and recruit him, seeing as even if Kirrahe had given her a location and a letter of introduction, he had not given her a means to actually get in touch with Mordin. But that was fine. She already had one errand to run at Omega, so this was very much a two birds with one stone situation. And who knows, maybe when there she'd managed to bag a third bird as well.

* * *

"Omega, huh?" Jacob remarked. "Well, we were always gonna have to go there eventually, what with the relay being there."

"Quite," Shepard said. "Though having to actually dock at the station comes with its own set of complexities." She looked over at Miranda. "So am I going to be constantly shooting opportunistic bounty hunters?"

"No," Miranda stated. "Cerberus has paid off Omega's current reigning authority for safe passage through the region. That's not the same as guaranteeing no one will come after us, but any that does, we'll have free reign to deal with however we want."

The three were once more gathered in the _Normandy's _conference room, discussing the leads Shepard had obtained on the Citadel. The reactions of the two Cerberus operatives to the nature of those leads were quite the study in contrast. Jacob seemed glad to have something to go on, and hardly seemed fazed by the notion of working with a Council Spectre or a retired STG operative. Miranda on the other hand was more wary, especially of the former. Perhaps the woman feared Garrus' presence would allow Shepard to create a trusted inner cadre that excluded her or Jacob, further weakening the admittedly already tenuous control Cerberus had on the colonel. If so, then Miranda was not merely being paranoid, as Shepard intended to do just that.

What Miranda did not seem to realize, not yet at least, was that the formation of this cadre was in and of itself merely a means to an end, not the end itself. For nothing precluded Miranda or Jacob from joining this inner circle, provided they could demonstrate their own loyalty and utility to Shepard. Jacob was already drifting in that direction, his experience as a marine naturally inclining him to place trust in a commanding authority that proved itself worthy of it. Miranda was more naturally suspicious because of her wetwork background, and the fact that she was being made to answer to someone else instead of being the one calling the shots certainly ground her gears, but if Shepard could break through that stubborn pride, then the two could easily become fast friends as well as trusted squad mates. And if that happened, it was hoped that the closing distance between Shepard and the others would be matched by a growing distance between them and Cerberus. One could hope at least.

"Good," Shepard said. "So what is the current situation with the station anyway? Aria still queen bee?"

As the unofficial dark heart of the Terminus Systems, Omega was of considerable strategic interest to the Terran Empire, if only as a threat to be assessed. The consummate officer that she was, Shepard naturally kept abreast of these sorts of potential threats. While this provided her with more than a bit of passing familiarity with Omega's general power structure, that was not the same as having kept up to date on the very latest intelligence developments.

"The Pirate Queen is indeed still in control," Miranda said, "though there are indications some of the other factions are getting restive. There's nothing to suggest that Aria is in danger of being unseated, but we should still take some precautions as a matter of course."

Shepard nodded. The risk of betrayal from Aria was likely manageable, so long as they did not go out of their way to annoy or offend the asari pirate. The biggest danger then were any factions prepared to be overly belligerent against Aria's syndicate, or if her rivals managed to get organized enough to kick off a coup attempt while Shepard and her own crew were on-station. Their best bet was to get in and out as quickly as possible. Hopefully Garrus and Mordin would not be too difficult to locate.

"What is the current situation on the station then?" Shepard asked.

"Presently, aside from Aria herself, three mercenary companies form the second-tier of authority on the station," Miranda began. "The Blood Pack, Blue Suns, and Eclipse each control about an equal amount of territory compared to each other, and collectively they might even rival Aria's organization."

"I wonder if the Blue Suns operation on Omega is how they fund some of their other operations," Shepard said idly.

"Possibly," Miranda said. "If nothing else, the wealth that the Blue Suns derive from their eezo operations on Omega certainly helps explain their standing as one of the largest mercenary corps around. Indeed the same could be said of the Blood Pack and Eclipse."

"Haven't run into Eclipse much in the past," Shepard said.

"Likely because outside of the Terminus Systems, they operate primarily in Council space," Miranda said, seemingly with a ready answer for everything. "They haven't tried expanding into terran regions. Anyway, as far as Omega goes, all three merc companies are fierce rivals against each other, and Aria, and even if they could set aside their differences long enough to make a play against her, it's not likely such an alliance would last long even if they succeeded. Everyone knows this, including the mercs themselves, which is why they probably haven't bothered to even try."

"So long as they keep playing coil until after we're done with our mission," Shepard said.

"Quite," Miranda agreed. "In addition the above however, Omega is also home to the escrow agency that manages most of the bounties posted for various persons of interest across the galaxy, yourself included. The escrow agency isn't allowed to collect on those bounties itself, officially, but we should still steer clear of them."

"Of course," Shepard drawled.

"That being said," Miranda continued, "Omega being what it is, it also tends to attract some of the more competent mercenaries in the business. We might be able to supplement our current pool of manpower with an additional recruit or two there."

"I don't know, Miranda," Jacob said warily. "Considering the stakes, do we really want to be trusting someone working just for a paycheck."

"Can we afford to be too picky?" Miranda countered. "Considering the mission parameters, we may have to accept certain compromises to find people who possess other specific qualities. Besides, I'm sure the colonel won't have any difficulty keeping them in line."

Jacob glanced over to see how Shepard would react to the backhanded compliment, but the colonel only shrugged.

"If we're hiring outside contractors, they need to be proper professionals," Shepard said, "not some jackbooted bully who's overcompensating with the size of his gun."

"I think we can probably find someone up to your standards, Colonel," Miranda said.

"It's your boss' dime," Shepard said, apparently leaving it to Miranda's discretion and moving on from the topic. "Once we arrive, our first objective will be to find Garrus and Mordin. I'll also want to take a look at the Omega-4 relay itself, get a few scans and maybe drop a few probes, assuming they won't just get swept up by local scavengers."

"The stealth on our probes should be adequate to keep them hidden," Miranda said. "And if they are discovered, well, we've arguably learned something about the technical capabilities of the local scavengers."

"Fine," Shepard said. "I presume there won't be any problems taking weapons onto the station?"

"It'd be more unusual if we tried to board without being armed," Miranda said. "So long as the right people are paid off, nobody of import is likely to care."

"Such a charming place," Shepard said with a roll of her eyes, then flashed a fierce grin. "And it sounds like just the sort of place to break in our new squad mate."

* * *

Despite officially being on leave, Shepard's reputation combined with a little string-pulling by Anderson saw the colonel allowed to make use of a secured holding cell aboard one of the carriers assigned to Tenth Fleet. With her in the cell was the transferred over tank, within which slumbered Okeer's 'perfect' krogan. With the rest of her business aboard the Citadel concluded, it was time to decant him. Just to be safe, while Shepard herself was alone in the holding cell, close to a platoon of marines were standing by outside just in the case.

"Let's crack it open, EDI," Shepard ordered.

"Flushing tank," EDI confirmed.

Inside, as the liquid drained away, the krogan himself was lowered as the buoyancy disappeared. The tank popped open, ejecting the krogan unceremoniously out onto his knees. He was a big boy, despite being so young, relatively speaking, that his forehead plate had yet to fuse. Coughing, the krogan cleared the nutrient bath from his lungs. Even as he rose, his eyes flickered as he got his bearings. It did not take long for those eyes to focus on Shepard. With a roar, the krogan charged.

The thud that sounded was rather dull, at least initially. The crashing came moments later as the krogan was sent flying back by the blue biotic field. The shock of being tossed around like this saw the krogan sit there for a few moments, blinking at Shepard. The colonel placed a hand on her still holstered pistol.

"Got it out of your system, or do I have to actually get serious?"

The krogan rose, this time regarding Shepard with far greater wariness.

"Human," the krogan said. "Female. Stronger than you look."

"Appearances are deceiving," Shepard responded. "Are you as worthy as you look?"

"Worthy? Worthy of what? I am trained, I know things. But the tank, Okeer couldn't implant connection. His words are hollow, his judgment hollow." The krogan looked away in thought. "Mere words. Warlord, legacy, grunt…grunt. 'Grunt.' It has no meaning. It'll do."

"Do?" Shepard said.

"My name," the krogan said with a growl. "I have no mission, no purpose. My name should also lack meaning."

Shepard tilted her head. "Okeer seemed to think you would blaze a trail for your people. That you would be an exemplar of their very best."

"I feel nothing for Okeer's clan or his enemies," the self-named Grunt sneered. "That imprint failed. _He_ failed. His reason is not mine, and I have no reason. Not yet at least."

This was certainly taking an interesting turn. It seemed while the krogan was not some blank slate, he did not possess the sort of fanatical drive that Okeer likely wanted instilled. That, could work.

"If you have no reason or cause, then why not join mine?" the colonel invited. "The enemies I face will be many and powerful and will be sure to test your mettle."

"Oh?" Grunt said. "And who would you be?"

"Evangeline Shepard," the colonel introduced herself. "Don't suppose Okeer taught you that name in his imprints?"

"Shepard, Shepard," Grunt murmured, then his eyes lit up. "Okeer taught me the names of many warriors that he felt were worthwhile to know. Yours is amongst them. The only living human name he bothered teaching me."

"I suppose I should take that as a compliment," Shepard said. "So? What say you?"

"Hmm, you certainly have no shortage of enemies that would challenge you," Grunt said with a wide, toothy grin. "I accept."

"Glad to have you with us, Grunt," Shepard said, flashing a fierce one of her own. "I'll expect you to pull your weight when we get stuck in."

"Oh, you won't need to worry about that," Grunt said with a low chuckle.

End of Chapter 10

I just needed to get this out of my head. Once we get to Omega things will get more exciting, but there's still at least two or so development scenes I need to get out beforehand. Though I'm sure quite a few of you enjoy the back and forth maneuvering as well.

I pulled Kirrahe's first name from Mordin's ME Foundation comic, even though that comic made a complete hash of what we thought to be the updated Genophage drop mission. So I took probably the only useful bit of information from that comic, a name I could reuse.

I mentioned in _Duty_ that it's the House of Plantagenet that is the ruling imperial family, and I also noted that the Emperor Charles' titles included King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain, Normandy, and Ireland. That was enough for several other readers to date the time of divergence to before the Hundred Years' War and postulate a much stronger, unified Britain going into the industrial era. I also noted a few things in relation to why Geneva is the imperial capital instead of London, so bits and pieces of the timeline divergence are there. Otherwise I'm intentionally withholding other information so that I can adjust and change them as the need arises as they become relevant to the actual plot.


End file.
